Expanding the Definition of Social Business

When Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, his definition of social business gained widespread prominence through its ability to lift millions of people out of extreme poverty using microfinance.

For Yunus, social business was a new category of business that would remove financial reward from its objectives. This was a necessary break from the old framework of business that focused on personal financial gain in order to fully unleash the true potential of social business, which would solve problems that threaten people and society in a financially sustainable manner. 

While this is indeed the best solution to eradicate many of the world’s most pressing problems, we wonder if the definition of social business could be expanded to include blended objectives and engage a wider group of individuals and organizations towards social aims.

For example, does the above definition of social business develop a false dichotomy between social business and the rest of the economy, still referred to as profit-maximizing businesses?

Could we instead embrace the very real reality that many organizations are becoming complex enough to integrate these two objectives and this could further be encouraged through a broader definition of social business. 

We could also argue that business has already learned how to make a profit and its next logical evolution of growth and complexity will come from adopting a social mission. Let’s not stifle this by excluding the mainstream economy from discovering its social impact.

Having said this, how do businesses address the very real concerns put forth by Yunus that incorporating the blended values of doing good and making money could render decision-making a difficult balancing act and lead to favouring profit and exaggerating the social benefit?  

Are there tools, frameworks or even certain organizational designs that could help alleviate this problem?

If profit is such a strong incentive, does it not make sense to try and socialize the desire, perhaps by establishing a reasonable rate of return?

These are the kinds of questions and discussions Axiom News is planning to engage in through a new story series exploring the definition of social business. 

Our mission is not to establish any one definition as superior, but rather aggregate a number of stakeholders, even sectors, to begin seeing how their work is part of a larger movement and evolution of commerce.

We want many people and organizations to apply their skills towards this new challenge – how to make social business work to its largest benefit.

Our goal is simple, let’s expand the reach of social business to more than those that can afford to be generous.