Social Entrepreneurship: An Evidence-Based Approach to Creating Social Value

chapter EIGHT

Managing the Social Intrapreneurial Process

At the turn of the first decade of the twenty-first century, nearly 40 percent of adults in Kenya were still “unbanked”; that is, they had no access to financial services. When they needed to transfer cash across the country, they had to send it through friends, family, or someone like a bus driver who would transfer the money for a fee. On the other hand, most adults had mobile phones.

These facts were seemingly unrelated to each other, and yet two social intrapreneurs at Vodafone, an England-based global telecom giant that owned 40 percent of Kenya's leading mobile communication provider, Safaricom, took notice and recognized an exciting business opportunity: leveraging Vodafone's mobile ...