Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Department: Business

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course introduces students to contemporary concepts, debates, and contexts necessary for analyzing and engaging in the sphere of social entrepreneurship. The course has five distinct parts: 1. social entrepreneurship overview; 2. social context and stakeholders; 3. private sector roles and motivations; 4. organizational forms and collaborations; and 5. measurement and impacts (private and public). Students will be exposed to various forms of social entrepreneurship, such as base of the pyramid/microenterprises, private-public partnerships, private-governmental partnerships, voluntary social codes, corporate social responsibility, and ethical consumerism. From this introductory foundation, students will undertake a social entrepreneurship project about a contemporary social problem in Houston: the urban food desert (https://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx). Students will learn a range of research methods (e.g. quantitative data analysis, ethnography, focus groups). With these research tools and building from perspectives offered by earlier by readings, guest speakers, and field visits, students will problematize, propose, develop, and present competing solutions to the social problem during the final course meetings. Cross-list: GLHT 464.