In early November of 2013, there was a beehive of activity at the Howard International House conference center, where a conclave on social enterprises, entitled “Building Social Enterprises for Tomorrow: Dialogue Between Taiwan and International Models,” was in full swing.

This well-attended international conference, funded by the Council of Labor Affairs and organized by the Taiwan Social Enterprise Innovation and Entrepreneurship Society (TSEIES), was by no means the first of its kind, but this time the response was more enthusiastic than ever before. The reason? Social enterprises are flourishing in Taiwan. The conference featured two main themes: international models and case studies. People came in droves seeking knowledge about social enterprises and hoping to learn from the experiences of others.

The Fu Jen MSE program places a lot of importance on exposure to up-and-running social enterprises, so that participants will be equipped to play a practical role in driving the real-world growth of the social enterprise phenomenon.

Chull-Young Lee, CEO of the Social Enterprise Network in Korea, pointed out at the conference that strong government leadership and systematic strategic development can generate very rapid growth of social enterprises, but at the same time there is the risk of suffocating the vitality of the private sector.

Ta­ke­naka ­Shingo, director of Ni­shi­nari Inner City Enterprises of Japan, shared a new operating model for social residential housing in ­Osaka. The topic was especially interesting because recently “urban renewal” programs in Taiwan have led to high-profile disputes and compulsory eviction of people from their homes. The presentation helped listeners to understand that there may be ways to resolve the rigid dialectical opposition of “good vs. evil” that has surrounded the issue of housing justice.

Katharine Danton, director of research and policy for “UnLtd, the Foundation of Social Entrepreneurs” in the UK, analyzed the diversity of capital sources for social enterprises. Besides traditional venture capital firms, social enterprises can also get financial assistance from lottery funds, foundations, and various other channels.

In the case study portion of the conference, entrepreneurs were invited to share their experiences in several fields, including employment for the handicapped, technology resources, agricultural innovation, and the financial system.

During the panel on “R&D and Innovation: How Technology Resources Create Social Well-Being,” case speaker Arthur ­Huang, director of Mini­wiz S.E.D. Company, stated right up front: “Mini­wiz is not a social enterprise per se, because we have always pursued profit maximization. It’s simply that we have directed our attention to ways to use technology to solve environmental problems.”

Wu ­Chung-shen, chairman of the Department of Sociology at Fu Jen and one of the organizers of the conference, stated that social enterprises in Taiwan need to be open to new ideas from diverse quarters. “It’s not only Mini­wiz—even Ni­shi­nari Inner City Enterprises does not define itself as a social enterprise. But broadly speaking, they are both social enterprises, because no matter what the starting point of a business, so long as love is central to its creation and it is a force for good in the world, they should all ultimately be considered social enterprises!”

The Fu Jen MSE program places a lot of importance on exposure to up-and-running social enterprises, so that participants will be equipped to play a practical role in driving the real-world growth of the social enterprise phenomenon.

The founding of the TSEIES at Fu Jen University in 2009 was a pathbreaking development, and has fueled ever-growing interest in the previously ignored area of social enterprises. Today, just four short years later, enthusiasm for social enterprises is radiating every­where. Not only are many charitable organizations seeking to become financially self-supporting by reinventing themselves as social enterprises, young entrepreneurs are everywhere talking about the concept of “doing good to make money, making money to do good.”

To understand the success of the MSE program at Fu Jen, you can start with the two academics who are the “soul men” behind the program: sociologist Wu ­Chung-shen and Department of Business Administration professor Hu Jer-san.

Hu Jer-san, born in 1953, specializes in market research and enterprise dia­gnost­ics. In the past he often traveled back and forth across the Taiwan Strait acting as a consultant for Taiwanese firms. When in 2009 he was hired to take charge of the social enterprise project at Fu Jen, he had to start completely from scratch, since no one had ever done anything like it before in Taiwan. He first recruited faculty from the College of Business Administration and formed an academic­ association for the study of social enterprises, to work on theoretical issues and raise the profile of this field. He then organized workshops and sought out social enterprises that are successfully operating in the real world. He also crossed traditional barriers between universities, working with schools all over Taiwan to hold seminars, and inviting participation from all interested parties.

Wu ­Chung-shen, born in 1970, originally specialized in economic sociology and financial sociology. In 2008, at the suggestion of a friend, he joined the Charity 2.0 project, designed to help people break the cycle of poverty, and organized by the United Way and the 104 Job Bank. This opened up an entirely new avenue of research, and he now pro-actively encourages sociologists who want to research social issues to first “go among the masses,” as it were.

Once a group of committed people had been gathered, things began to move quickly and efficiently. Externally, the academic society has been promoting the concept of “using social enterprises to generate profits and help others,” and they also organized the Social Justice Action Alliance to recruit volunteers to assist in holding various events and activities. Internally, the university founded a “social enterprise research center” and developed a curriculum for students at the school as well as a credit program for non-students in order to develop skilled people for both academia and the real world.

This September, social enterprise studies at Fu Jen moved to another level, as classes began at Taiwan’s first MSE program. To be eligible to enroll, one must have had at least two years of experience in a full-time job or full-time volunteer position. Next year the school plans to expand to two programs, one for people already in the working world and one for regular matriculating students.

UK social enterprise expert Katharine Danton held a special class on fundraising for students in the Master of Social Enterprise program at Fu Jen Catholic University.

The MSE program’s working students take classes on the weekends. Of the 14 students, half are already social entrepreneurs, and they even inlcude well-known figures from Taiwan’s charitable sector. One person in particular—Ben ­Hsieh, concurrently serving as chairman of the Taiwan Foundation for the Blind and the social enterprise “Dialogue in the Dark Taiwan”—is known by everyone as their “marquee student.” A physician with a very good reputation in society at large, even before entering the program he was serving as a consultant to the social enterprise academic society. It was his responsibilities in managing “Dialogue in the Dark” over the last two years, however, that brought him to the program in order to increase his knowledge of the field.

Hsieh says that idealism runs high at the MSE program, and students are a lot different from those you see in the typical “executive master of business administration” (EMBA) program favored by corporate warriors. Every day he sets aside time to study, poring over his thick textbooks, which he finds more and more fascinating as he goes along. “It feels like back in the days when I was in university.”

The curriculum design of the MSE program is very unusual in that it emphasizes a balance between theoretical and practical learning. About 60% of the course is devoted to basic academic subjects, while the other 40% involves getting out of the classroom for practical experience in social enterprises. Moreover, before graduation students are required to spend a two-week period as a volunteer in a social enterprise overseas (paid for out of their own pockets). Students in the first group entering the program will collectively travel to mainland China in 2014 to work in various social enterprises.

The book pictured here collects field research and case studies of social enterprises conducted by scholars at Fu Jen Cathoic University.

Hu Jer-san points out that we have long been accustomed to assuming that businesses will inevitably face challenging barriers in terms of both knowledge and technology, but that’s not the way it is with entrepreneurship today. For young people who have grown up in the information age, there are no technological obstacles. As soon as they find a new need or problem in society, it’s equivalent to a businessman finding “unmet demand,” and they can immediately found businesses. Entrepreneurship has moved from “technological innovation” to “social innovation.”

During the Q&A session at the international conference, a member of an Aboriginal advocacy group from Ping­tung called on the entrepreneurs present to devise some new robotic prosthetics for the handicapped. She argued, “This is a need that exists every­where in the world, so you can definitely make money at it.” Conference attendees responded with thunderous applause at this example of a clear-headed business opportunity waiting to be embraced.

The Fu Jen MSE program places a lot of importance on exposure to up-and-running social enterprises, so that participants will be equipped to play a practical role in driving the real-world growth of the social enterprise phenomenon.

When you hear Hu Jer-san talk about the social enterprises he has discovered and defined over the years—like Aurora Social Enterprise, the Antique Assam Tea Farm, the Twine fair trade brand, and the Sunlight Xiao­lin community product line—his voice is filled with emotion, nothing like the cold and dry tone of run-of-the-mill academic case studies. Looking back, Hu says, “The feeling is like founding a business; it’s just that our enterprise is on a university campus!”

Thinking about his own academic path through the world of social enterprises, Wu ­Chung-san is likewise filled with passion and vitality. He continually expresses his gratitude to the friend who recommended that he join the Charity 2.0 project, transforming his academic horizons.

Currently Wu is providing advice to Fair­Trade Taiwan, organizing an international conference, and going abroad to visit social organizations of many different forms. “Every case study is touching, very moving, and every number is like magic. Academic research doesn’t get any better than this!”

This is certainly the first time ever in Taiwan that an academic institution has given a wake-up call to industry across a broad swathe of the private sector. It is a shining moment for Taiwan to see traditional intellectuals leave the ivory tower to make the world a better place.

Wu Chung-san (right) and Hu Jer-sen, two professors at Fu Jen Catholic University, have been key players in getting the school’s MSE program in social enterprises up and running. They represent the melding of sociology (Wu) with business administration (Hu) that social enterprises embody.

The Fu Jen MSE program places a lot of importance on exposure to up-and-running social enterprises, so that participants will be equipped to play a practical role in driving the real-world growth of the social enterprise phenomenon.