Please, Read the attached case study and critically evaluate the concept of social entrepreneurship as a way of creating ‘social impact’ 09-095
September 15, 2009
This case was prepared by Anju Mathew, Grete Rød, Jaime Villalobos, and David Yates (MIT Sloan School of Management,
MBA Class of 2009) under the supervision of lecturer M. Jonathan Lehrich.
Copyright © 2009, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San
Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Digital Divide Data
Anju Mathew, Grete Rød, Jaime Villalobos, David Yates
As Digital Divide Data (DDD) entered its ninth year of operations, its leadership had ample reason to
be pleased with the company’s progress. Since its inception in 2001 as a small IT outsourcing com-
pany with a dozen employees in Cambodia, DDD had grown into an internationally recognized,
nonprofit social enterprise. A 2008 recipient of the prestigious Skoll award for social entrepreneur-
ship, DDD and its staff of 500 served clients in the United States and Western Europe from two
offices in Cambodia and one in Laos. Its annual operating revenues hovered around US$2 million,
and it had trained and provided scholarships to over 1,300 disadvantaged youth.
DDD’s social mission was to help economically disadvantaged young adults, some of whom were
physically disabled. DDD trained and employed young Cambodians and Laotians in IT outsourcing,
with the goal that they would graduate from DDD and continue to earn competitive wages for
themselves and their families. DDD recruited recent high school graduates whose prospects for jobs
and post-secondary education were limited, due to lack of resources or disability. The company
provided its recruits with computer training as well as English classes required for DDD’s work—
data entry and digitization—and gave scholarships to all recruits to study for a business- or
technology-related degree at a local university. After three to four years working at DDD, the
operator (as an entry-level employee was known) would then complete his or her university degree
and graduate from DDD. Graduates either were promoted within DDD, or left to join other
organizations that valued their professional experience and technical skills.
Satisfied with the apparent success of the company’s business model and operations, DDD’s U.S.-
based leadership wondered how it could rapidly scale up DDD’s social impact globally. DDD relied
on a small U.S.-based management team, supplemented by expatriate volunteers and short-term
assignees on the ground in Cambodia and Laos. Growing the number of paid U.S. staff to manage
Answer
(Solution) 09-095 September 15, 2009 Digital Divide Data Anju Mathew, Grete Rd, Jaime Villalobos, David Yates As Digital Divide Data (DDD) entered its ninth...
(Solution) 09-095 September 15, 2009 Digital Divide Data Anju Mathew, Grete Rd, Jaime Villalobos, David Yates As Digital Divide Data (DDD) entered its ninth...
(Solution) 09-095 September 15, 2009 Digital Divide Data Anju Mathew, Grete Rd, Jaime Villalobos, David Yates As Digital Divide Data (DDD) entered its ninth...
(Solution) 09-095 September 15, 2009 Digital Divide Data Anju Mathew, Grete Rd, Jaime Villalobos, David Yates As Digital Divide Data (DDD) entered its ninth...