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"There are two things that are important in politics," Mark Hanna, the great Republican kingmaker of the late 19th century, once said. "The first thing is money, and I can't remember what the second one is."

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have a free reign in campaign advertising.  (But bloggers have to tell whether they received a review copy of a book). 

The US Supreme Court threw out regulations that prohibited corporations from buying campaign commercials that explicitly advocate the election or defeat of candidates.

Democrats called the ruling a threat to democracy.

Republicans cheered it as a victory for free speech.

I call it the ultimate case for paid speech.  And I'm a journalist who gets paid for speaking out. Right?  Will multinational corporations take our local concerns into consideration...or their global scale interests?  Who will buy their votes?  Is there any transparency mandated in this corporate sponsorship of political advertising? Do they have to tell us who is influencing their messages?  And who will benefit from their advocacy?  Will the FTC monitor, and regulate their "speech"?    

It has always disturbed me that corporations have ALL the rights of an INDIVIDUAL except voting.  And dying a timely death.  Now we're breaking the barrier that lets them buy votes, so I guess we're close to giving corporate directors the corporate vote.

What I can't understand is how these employees put corporate interests so far ahead of their spouse, children, parents, friends, neighbors and employees' spouses, children, parents, friends, neighbors and small business service providers.  How do they lose their humanity when they sign those big checks?

There are a lot of questions we need to ask...but have you ever tried to ask a corporate director a question?  Did you get through...and get an answer?  

Oh yes, "The first thing that matters is money..."

Newswise -- An international report on new business development  includes the first global study of social entrepreneurship. In 2009, 49 national teams collected data on social entrepreneurial activity. It covered any activity with a social purpose, including social or community work, for profit or non-profit, and incorporated or non-incorporated.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) includes a study of the prevalence of people engaged in entrepreneurial activities with a social goal, whether profit or non-profit, public or private.

Siri A. Terjesen, assistant professor of strategic management and international entrepreneurship and her co-authors found that the average rate of social entrepreneurship activity increases slightly with economic development.

"Individuals in richer countries, having satisfied their own basic needs, may be more likely to turn to the needs of others," they wrote in the report. "In other words, the opportunity cost of social entrepreneurship may be higher in developing countries.

"On the other hand, social and environmental problems are often more prevalent in developing countries," they added. "Another reason for this finding is that the definitions of a traditional enterprise and a social enterprise may overlap in developing countries, whereas they may be more distinct in developed counties."

For example, they found that social and business entrepreneurship overlap "quite significantly" in places such as Peru, Columbia, Venezuela and Jamaica.

More holistic definitions of entrepreneurship are needed

"A significant minority of social entrepreneurs, particularly in developing countries, appear to wish to have a profitable business that at the same time addresses social issues," the report said. "This demonstrates that for many people, the categories of 'social' and 'business' entrepreneur are artificial, and more holistic definitions of entrepreneurship are needed if we are to capture the true extent of this phenomenon."

• Countries with the highest prevalence of social entrepreneurs in the 2009 GEM sample included United Arab Emirates, the United States, Iceland and Argentina.
  
• Countries with few social entrepreneurs included Guatemala, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Sectors of Robust Social Entrepreneurship

The GEM report found that socially oriented entrepreneurs are found in a variety of areas --education, health, culture, economic development and the environment. Among them, specific issues differed across economic groups.

Factor-Driven Economies

For example, many social entrepreneurs in factor-driven economies - which are highly sensitive to world economic cycles, commodity price trends and exchange rate fluctuations - tend to focus on "more elementary issues and pressing needs" such as such as providing health care, access to sanitation and fresh water and agricultural activities in rural areas.

Innovation-Driven Economies

Many of those in innovation-driven countries focus on recycling, nature protection, providing services for disabled persons and even open-source activities such as online social networking.

Siri A. Terjesen, assistant professor of strategic management and international entrepreneurship, produced the social entrepreneurship component of the report with Rachida Justo of the Instituto de Empresa in Spain and Jan Lepoutre of Ghent University in Belgium.

Since 1998, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has become the world's most comprehensive research consortium dedicated to understanding the relationship between entrepreneurship and national economic development. GEM provides the most comprehensive comparative data about attitudes toward entrepreneurs, start-up business activities, and plans for starting and building businesses, globally, by geographic region and by country.

The complete GEM report, which is based on interviews with at least 2,000 people in 54 countries, is available online at http://www.gemconsortium.org/ and provides further details about social entrepreneurship and many other global entrepreneurial findings.

Entrepreneurial Leaders

Studied over an extended period of time, publicly traded stocks of companies led by entrepreneurs consistently outperform non-entrepreneurs by a wide margin, according to research by Babson Associate Professor Joel M. Shulman, associate professor of entrepreneurship.

These entrepreneurial leadership results ring true even after comparing the entrepreneurial group against non-entrepreneur peers adjusted for industry sector, market size, geographic territory, and time period of study, according to Shulman.

Shulman suggests that because entrepreneurs try to keep costs low while vigorously growing the business, entrepreneurial companies are well positioned to perform better than ever in a sluggish, recovering economy.

Shulman's recent update on stocks for calendar 2009 show:

• Stocks of entrepreneur-led companies significantly outperform non entrepreneurs (YTD through 12/1/09, 650+ global entrepreneurs are up 93%);
  
• Stocks of "bureaucrat" companies underperform non-bureaucrats and entrepreneurs by a wide margin (these are stocks that individuals would sell or sell short);
• Stocks of entrepreneur-led companies continue to outperform non-entrepreneurs even after adjusting by market cap size, sector, geography, or time period.

Joel Shulman. "Investing in Troubled times: Entrepreneurs Are Your Safest Bet", The Investment Professional, Fall 2009 http://www.theinvestmentprofessional.com/vol_2_no_4/investing-in-troubled-times.html

Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., is recognized internationally as a leader in entrepreneurial management education. Babson grants BS degrees through its innovative undergraduate program, and grants MBA and custom MS and MBA degrees through the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. Babson Executive Education offers executive development programs to experienced managers worldwide. For information, visit www.babson.edu.

SOURCE: Newswise
Publishe  in the November 2009 issue of The Investment Professional.