In the social enterprise space these days, there is a particular emphasis on action. People want to see things being done. The don’t want to just hear talk. They want to see outputs. They want to see outcomes. Critics of the space seem to feel that there is a lot of talk and little action—there are a lot of great stories out there, but upon digging deep, some of these stories are just that, nice tales about what someone is thinking about doing.
It seems that all forums/events/conferences of late are out to turn this notion upside-down. Certainly the Khemka Forum, which took place in Hyderabad on December 8th and 9th, had this very aim. The Forum’s promise was: “to provide you with cutting edge advantage by demonstrable short term “wins” while maintaining the overarching objective of building the “eco-system” of social entrepreneurship in India.”
I must be honest, for the first day and a half of the Forum I was a bit disappointed. There was a slight sense in the crowd that something was missing. Many of us had seen the speakers before. There were not too many new faces in the crowd. It was the usual suspects, per say. There wasn’t much “action.”
And then, day two, circa 11.30 am, it all changed. At this time, I attended a consultancy clinic entitled “Constructing New Forms of Knowledge Creation,” led by the fabulous Matt Nash, Managing Director of CASE at Duke. The aim: to build bridges between academics and practitioners. It sought to answer the following questions: How do we use the skills of academics to advance practice and theory? How do we find a form of communication and organization that actually engages with practitioners on the ground, while not devaluing the academic roles? What action research agenda is needed to advance the field of social entrepreneurship in India?
This concept of action remained prominent throughout the session. We plotted a roadmap. Finally…
We heard from the practitioners and from the academics. The tensions: practitioners want timely, actionable, accessible, and relevant knowledge. On the other hand, academics seek to develop theoretical frameworks. The end-product is written for other academics. Because of the incentive structure of academia and what is required to receive tenure, academics are rarely rewarded for taking the time to translate their work for practitioners. Hence, the practitioners feel that the academics come in, take valuable time from the practitioners, make suggestions about how to improve their organizations, then leave. They run in the other direction when it comes to implementation. Hence, from the viewpoint of practitioners, time spent with academics is time wasted.
So what needs to be done? Well here is where the action begins. We need to bring practice into the classroom. And we need to get academics and students into the field, implementing their ideas. Academics and students have an advantage in that they are in a position to see patterns and trends that an individual practitioner or a small group of practitioners are likely to miss. Academics have the training to bring a critical perspective and rigor to knowledge development. At the same time, it was argued that it is much more valuable for a student to spend time on the ground, working for a social enterprise, than to “solve” the issues of the social enterprise from the ivory tower. Somehow, we must align the two.
And, we hope that the relationships that were formed around this table in Hyderabad will be the first and necessary step in doing just that. Case studies will not longer simply benefit MBA students, but in the process of studying an organization in order to write a case study, the student will actually visit the social enterprise, spend time on the ground, and help in the implementation of the case study’s recommendations. Systems will be built to ensure the proper functioning of this. And we will take the lead in doing this.
This is just the very beginning of ecosystem building between academics and practitioners in the social enterprise space, the very beginning of fruitful, long-term engagement in the future. A sign of success: we have already been in contact about all of this, and the conference has only been over a mere 48 hours.
So what do I think? I think we need to drastically rethink how forums/events/conferences are being organized. We need to get creative. The real meat, the real action happens when dialogue can occur, when people are seated around a table, throwing ideas up for debate and discussing paths to success. It doesn’t occur during panel discussions or plenary speeches. It doesn’t even really occur during coffee breaks. So, let’s get planning…
And don’t miss ThinkChangeIndia’s coverage from the Khemka Forum – Day 1 and Day 2. There you will find great summaries of the daily activities.
