Healey-Benson, Felicity and Kirby, David A. (2024) Welsh Harmonious SMEs: a Blueprint for Addressing Inequality through Entrepreneurship. In: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship 46th Annual Conference, 6-7 November 2024, Cutler's Hall, Sheffield..
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Applicability to the Conference Theme As the title indicates, the paper deals directly with the conference topic of global inequality and how entrepreneurship research, policy, and practice may help to create a more equitable world. It contends that, despite the introduction of social enterprise, entrepreneurship has contributed to, if not created, the present problem. Indeed, Isenberg (2014) has claimed that entrepreneurship always leads to inequality. This is something that the paper intends to challenge by proposing an alternative solution that helps to alleviate or eradicate inequality. The paper will demonstrate how conventional entrepreneurship driven by profit maximisation has not just perpetuated income inequality but systemic inequalities such as gender, race, disability, and access to education, food, healthcare, and other dimensions. While it is recognised that to be sustainable enterprises need to be profitable the paper calls for a review of Friedman’s (1970) shareholder value doctrine and contends that profit should not be at the expense of either people or the planet. Accordingly, it proposes an innovative holistic solution, harmonious entrepreneurship, as a pioneering paradigm based on systems theory that fuses activist orientations with ethical, sustainable business practices to tackle inequality holistically. There is a lack of material specifically showcasing how SMEs can address inequality through their entrepreneurial activities and business models. Mainstream entrepreneurship education and cases have traditionally focused on conventional profit-driven business models and metrics like growth, innovation, competitiveness, etc., while societal impact beyond economic value creation has received less emphasis. Even social entrepreneurship cases often highlight larger organisations, or the corporate social responsibility initiatives of the multinationals rather than spotlighting SME grassroots approaches, many of which have not been sustainable commercially. Hence the research identifies and analyses several Welsh SMEs through case studies that exemplify the "harmonious concept" and address the inequality issue. These ventures span, among others, ethical fashion, survivor support, and cultural integration. Their localised efforts synergistically create economic value while advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act by enabling sustainable livelihoods and empowering marginalised groups. These inspiring cases demonstrate how activist entrepreneurial models can cultivate more equitable ecosystems. Aim This paper aims to: 1) Demonstrate the need for a new entrepreneurship paradigm in order to address the inequality issues created by the existing paradigm. 2) Position harmonious entrepreneurship as a vital new model balancing profit with societal equity, human rights, and environmental regeneration. 3) Showcase how a selection of Welsh SME harmonious enterprises tackle inequality while achieving economic and social impact, with a focus on those aligning with SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). 4) Emphasise the need to empower the next generation with localised, ethical entrepreneurial curricula and role models inspiring societal change. 5) Advocate incorporating harmonious entrepreneurship principles into entrepreneurship education to cultivate socially conscious innovative enterprises in which profit, planet, and people are in harmony. At its core, the paper seeks to position the "harmonious entrepreneurship" model as a transformative solution for tackling systemic inequality—an issue often perpetuated by conventional entrepreneurship's singular obsession with profit maximisation, frequently at the expense of societal wellbeing in SMEs. The paper critically observes that inequality extends far beyond income disparities, permeating across intersecting dimensions like gender, race, disability, and more. It argues that rather than alleviating these inequalities, entrepreneurial activities have tended to reinforce and enable unjust systems through exploitative business practices that prioritise shareholder returns over equitable impact on local communities. In contrast, the harmonious entrepreneurship paradigm proposes fusing activist orientations with ethical, sustainable operations to address inequality holistically at the grassroots level. The paper ultimately positions harmonious entrepreneurship among SMEs as a compelling new pathway for collaborative entrepreneurship research to reveal bottom-up, indigenous solutions towards creating more equitable and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems, especially in underserved communities. Methodology The paper is based on an inductive programme of research that adopts a grounded theory-type approach using qualitative cases/vignettes. The case data has been collected through desk research utilising secondary sources such as news articles, interviews, company websites and other contemporary media materials. While such media sources have acknowledged limitations in academic contexts (Lupton, 2014), they offer valuable benefits by providing access to current viewpoints, real-world examples, and insights into emerging entrepreneurial innovations. T The cases were chosen based on: 1) demonstrated impact in tackling inequalities in Wales (inclusive of SDGs 10 and 16); 2) embodiment of harmonising profit motives with social/environmental missions; and 3) representation of diverse sectors and contexts showcasing harmonious entrepreneurship's widespread applications in Wales. The paper contributes by challenging the existing entrepreneurship paradigm and proposing a novel, more holistic concept, Harmonious Entrepreneurship (Kirby & El-Kaffas, 2021). This has been formulated specifically to address the sustainability challenge, including the issues of inequality. It is based on systems theory and the principle of harmony integrating the economic, environmental, humane, and social approaches to entrepreneurship in order to produce ventures that achieve a balanced triple bottom line where profit, people, and planet are aligned. Additionally, the paper provides much-needed rich case material that demonstrates how activist entrepreneurial models can complement policy measures intended to cultivate more equitable, sustainable ecosystems, as exemplified in the recent compilation of Welsh ventures addressing SDG 16—Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (Healey-Benson & Kirby, 2024). This further aligns with the Welsh Government's Well-being of Future Generations Act, working to improve the environment, economy, society, and culture as Wales strives for a prosperous, resilient, healthier, and more equal nation with cohesive communities. The SME cases presented resonate deeply with supporting diverse, underrepresented entrepreneurs who embed values of peace, justice, and sustainability into their ventures. They serve as inspirational models for current and future Welsh entrepreneurs, especially SMEs. Implications for policy/practice The findings have key implications for entrepreneurship research in reframing entrepreneurial "success" through a societal equality lens. • For students, the findings provide inspiring examples to envision and pursue entrepreneurship as a vehicle for positive societal change and demonstrate how ethical business models can synergistically create economic value while advancing SDGs and promoting a more equitable society. • For educators, they present as opportunities to introduce, to their curricula and programmes, case material with vignettes infused with activist entrepreneurship principles and a values-based pedagogy that empowers learners to tackle real-world challenges through entrepreneurial action, thereby helping to cultivate the next generation of socially conscious innovators and change-makers. • For policymakers, the research highlights the need for holistic enablers empowering such activist-entrepreneur collaboratives. • For practitioners, it provides a values-based roadmap for integrating the United Nations' SDGs Goals into core business strategy and operations. Overall, this harmonious entrepreneurship collection offers a compelling illustration of how entrepreneurship research engaging diverse stakeholders can reveal powerful grassroots solutions for creating a more just, inclusive world. The proposed model needs further testing in different contexts and there needs to be further research into how entrepreneurship can best address the issue of inequality thereby nullifying the claim by Isenberg (2014, para. 1) that “successful entrepreneurship always exacerbates local inequality”.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | L Education > L Education (General) |
| Divisions: | Research Innovation and Enterprise Services |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | Felicity Healey-Benson |
| Date Deposited: | 20 Nov 2024 16:39 |
| Last Modified: | 20 Nov 2024 16:39 |
| URI: | https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/3208 |
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