Beyond intellectual property and rich infrastructure: A Community Service Learning perspective on universities’ supportive role towards social entrepreneurs

Universities are considered important actors in ecosystems supporting entrepreneurs due to their resources and intellectual property rights, based on scientific research. Such a view is based on discussions drawing on evidence in Western economies, mainly in North America and Europe. However, this view is irrelevant to many developing countries, where universities are confronted with limited resources, underdeveloped scientific research and even minimal knowledge of entrepreneurship. In such contexts, it is unclear how universities can support entrepreneurs without having intellectual property or rich resources. We use the theoretical lens of community service learning and the context of social entrepreneurship to argue that universities can support the entrepreneurial ecosystem by leveraging the critical mass of their students, faculty and staff members, and thus do not necessarily need rich infrastructure or intellectual property rights. Based on a qualitative research in Bolivia, we introduce 18 basic activities for students, faculty, staff members and the community to support social entrepreneurs, since these activities do not require any exceptional resources nor fundamental research.