Teaching social business to Thai students: A case of LGBTIQ+ social business

Abstract

This paper examined the learning experiences of a group of undergraduate business students from a Thai business school in a social business course. The key point to examine in this study is learning and teaching approaches for social business education that can promote understanding of gender diversity. To understand the experiences of stakeholders in social business education, a qualitative approach was adopted wherein students, teaching staff and social entrepreneurs engaged with the researcher in a real-time, hands-on social business environment. We collected secondary data from assignments, feedback, and presentations from students and their social business coaches. We also collected primary data in the form of personal interviews with two social entrepreneurs who coached students in this course. The results suggest that the development of pedagogy for social business requires multidisciplinary collaboration and codesign among course coordinators, teachers, social business, and students. We also summarized four appropriate learning approaches, LGBTIQ + social business, in the Thai higher education context: advocacy, problem-based, research-based and practical-operational approaches. We suggest that social business should also be taught by academic staff and industry representatives to help students in the learning process. This study also suggests that a student-centered approach can help students synergize social impacts with the financial returns of social business by adopting inquiry-based activities, role plays, and talking with LGBTIQ + social entrepreneurs.