Social Entrepreneurship in China

Diploma Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, Tongji University, language: English, abstract: Entrepreneurship in China developed itself in the early nighties, when the influence of the past and regulations of the government became lower. What is interesting to study is how entrepreneurship works in China, and what are new forms of entrepreneurship, that follow the evolution of the growth of the society. New policies and regulations were part of the change. The most influential of these was ¿several policy recommendations on the encouragement and promotion of small businesses¿ (State Economic Commission of the State Council in July 2000). The country is then facing the arrival of a new trend: Social entrepreneurship. Coming from Europe, this consists in doing business in a way that creates value for all actors involved and more precisely a positive impact to the society. Moreover, the definition of social entrepreneurship is not the same for all actors, and this creates difficulties to quantity the number of companies that can be referenced as social enterprise. In order to communicate on their actions, those companies must consider the online market. More than in Europe, Chinese consumers are buying online, and talk and exchange a lot on online communities such as Taobao, Baidu, Ququ. This aspect of the market is important for companies to understand how to communicate with customers but also can influence the way they do business. Then social enterprises¿ projects can be support by more important one, driven by bigger companies. This is where Corporate Social Responsibility intervenes. It concerns action driven by influential companies that have some assets and decide to dedicate a part of their activity to projects that can have a positive impact on society. In China, China Mobile, the first ¿supplier¿ of mobile phone or State Grid, the first¿¿ of electricity are part of it. There initiatives can go from giving free access to their services in case of urgent matters (ex. Sichuan earthquake) or simply being part of the empowerment of life of millions of people. This is for example the case of Total linked to the university of TONGJI in Shanghai, that supports some projects and give access to fund to students. To conclude Social entrepreneurship is a growing and challenging issue in China and will probably be more well-known in the near future thanks to support of important companies and the government.