Entrepreneurship: Traits and Characteristics of Social Entrepreneurs with Reference to Fairphone

The paper discusses the traits and characteristics of social entrepreneurs with reference to Fairphone. It highlights the challenges and boundaries faced by social entrepreneurs and concludes by summarizing the concept and traits of social entrepreneurship.

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Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Executive Summary:
The purpose of the paper is to understand the traits and characteristics of an entrepreneur with
reference from the activities of Fairphone business operation. The paper assessed the
characteristic of the company owners in dealing with the circumstances and the manner in
which they facilitated the business models. The paper highlighted the concept of social
entrepreneurship and the major challenges associated with it. The paper is concluded by
summarizing the concept and traits of social entrepreneurship.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Characteristics of entrepreneurs in reference with Fairphone:..............................................3
Challenges and boundaries in Social entrepreneurship:.........................................................5
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The process of planning, launching as well as operating a new venture is known as
Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship can be defined as the willingness and capacity of
constructing, organizing as well as managing a new business venture in presence of risks for
making a change or earning profit (Burns 2016). The types of entrepreneurship involves
private entrepreneurs, intrapreneurship and social entrepreneurship (Carraher, Welsh and
Svilokos 2016). The purpose of the paper is to understand the role, traits as well as
characteristics of an entrepreneur in reference with the Fairphone business. The concept of
social entrepreneurship will be highlighted in the paper. The paper will also stress on the
challenges and boundaries experienced by social entrepreneurs. The paper will be concluded
by presenting the summary of entrepreneurial traits as well as the challenges involved in
social enterprise operations.
Discussion
Characteristics of entrepreneurs in reference with Fairphone:
 Creativity and innovation- The founders of the Fairphone reflects the quality of an
innovator for coming up with the idea of bringing ethically manufactured phones. The
entrepreneurs identified the concerns in regards with mobile manufacturing and
responded to the requirement or demand by sourcing recyclable raw materials,
adopting fair trade practices, by implementing good working conditions and by
utilizing creative approach for constructing a long lasting smartphone.
 Vision- Although, Bas Van Abel, the founder of Fairphone did not started the
awareness campaign for starting a company of manufacturing Fairphone smartphones
but they reflected the long-term vision of making a change in the society by spreading
awareness about the unethical practices of smartphone manufacturing process

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(Haucke 2018). They wanted to establish a change by educating people about the
concept of ‘fair supply chain’ (Dees 2017).
 Versatility- The entrepreneur reflects the traits of versatility as he started the social
enterprise without having any prior knowledge or expertise in manufacturing a
smartphone but he responded to the demand of customers by learning about the
functions of a business models. Bas Van Abel adopted the role of an enterprise owner
by adopting versatile roles and responsibilities.
 Risk Tolerance- The risk tolerance capability can be portrayed by the operational
activities of Fairphone as the business was started without initial experience and
resources in manufacturing a smartphone enterprise. The founder of Fairphone started
the company with the risk of not having a proper consumer base and with the
unavailability of required funding.
 Combining business strategy with social awareness- The ability of integrating social
awareness/change with business activities reflects the major characteristics of a social
entrepreneur (Durkin and Gunn 2016).
 Creator of Change- The implementation of a change in the society by establishing a
new concept of ethically produced smartphones, the company Fairphone reflects
entrepreneurial traits (Akemu, Whiteman and Kennedy 2016).
 Consideration of every single problem as a resource is a major characteristics of a
social entrepreneur. The company Fairphone is established based on the growing
problems of unethical and environmentally harmful raw materials. The problem was
considered as a resource for bringing change in the society (Chell et al. 2016).
 Determination- Determination is another trait, which can motivate entrepreneurial
activities for the purpose of addressing every challenge.

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 Sense of ethics and integrity- The sense of integrity and ethics reflects a long-term
vision and viability of a new business venture. Fairphone business operations started
on the base of ethical and social consciousness. Although the company is not perfectly
practicing ethical practices but Fairphone can be the example of an enterprise
constructed on the foundation of ethics and sustainability. Understanding of value network- The understanding and sense of value for the
network associated with the business venture is very crucial for entrepreneurial
success. Fairphone is a social enterprise, which respects each levels of supply chain
and involves in fair trade practices for implementing the concept an eco-friendly and
ethical smartphone (Brix-Asala et al. 2018).
Challenges and boundaries in Social entrepreneurship:
Social entrepreneurs reflects the quality of pursuing novel implementations for the
intension of changing societal, environmental and/or community issues. The individuals
accepts risk for creating a positive change in the society (Van Eynde and Bachus 2016). The
use of business activities or operational functions for creating change in the society in known
as Social entrepreneurship. The objectives of social entrepreneurs are not concentrated on
profits rather they focusses on non-commercial aspect of business. Social entrepreneurs
identifies the issues in the environment and utilizes entrepreneurial skills for sourcing
resources for establishing a change.
The challenges experienced in social entrepreneurship are as follows:
1. Raising capital for investment - One of the major challenge faced by every social
entrepreneur including Bas Van Abel is sourcing financial resources. The response for
the demand of ethical and eco-friendly smartphones required a fair amount of
investment for the purpose of sourcing raw materials as well as for production cost.

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The entrepreneur/founder of the social enterprise Fairphone established a crowd
funding campaign along with his six staff for facilitating the production process (Van
Eynde and Bachus 2016).
2. Identifying right supplier(s) and/or manufacturer(s) - Another challenge that can be
faced by social entrepreneurs is the identification of supplier and/or manufacturer
based on the similar ethical practices as the values of the social enterprise. In case of
Fairphone, although the company was successful is sourcing raw materials from
ethical backgrounds but the sourcing of cobalt, which is used for batteries are
facilitated through Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (Van Eynde and Bachus
2016). DRC is known for adopting child labour practices. It can be considered as a
challenge for Fairphone for aligning their values with each of their supplier.
3. Avoiding Mission Drift- Another challenge can be the pressure leading to mission drift
of a social enterprise. The social enterprise Fairphone experiences a high demand in
spite of being an entrepreneurial enterprise. The company cancelled the decision of
launching a new model Fairphone 3 as the company wants to stick to their core
objective of producing environment friendly and long-lasting product. However, the
challenges will arrive with the increasing demand for newer model (Van Eynde and
Bachus 2016).
4. Communication of value to the investors or donors can be difficult for the long run of
business operation as the social enterprise Fairphone specializes in creating social
value rather than major commercial values, which can restrict the capability of
sourcing investments (Kuratko 2016).
5. Another boundary or challenge can be the lack of resources for promoting the
venture. Fairphone also experiences the challenge of establishing a strong consumer

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base as they do not have the resource or fund for investing in promotional strategies
(Van Eynde and Bachus 2016).
Conclusion:
Therefore it can be concluded from the paper that entrepreneurs should reflects the
traits of risk-taker, innovators, change creator as well as should possess the understanding of
ethical practices. The social entrepreneurs have the ethical consciousness of establishing a
positive change for communities, environment or society but they experiences various
challenges and boundaries in order to construct and maintain their business operations. The
major challenges includes funding issues, inability to use promotional tools because of lack
of funds, the market pressure for deviating from the core values of a social enterprise as well
as the aligning the sense of social consciousness with every supplier and/or manufacturer.
The company Fairphone attempts at achieving a cent percent level of ethical association but
they are struggling with the sourcing of raw material for batteries. Social entrepreneurs can
be the next best contributor of the world’s economy and/or progress provided it experience
support and similar value system from external environment.

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References:
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