The previous chapters have aided in understanding the research participants’
conceptions of social enterprise and human rights and their various strengths, motivations
and weaknesses with an eye to understanding how these influence the actions that they
take. This chapter makes an argument for a human rights-based approach to social
enterprise as the logical integration of business methods and development practice to
achieve social change. In essence, a human rights-based approach to social enterprise can
integrate “the political side of development and change efforts with the organizing,
capacity building, and creative dimensions.” (Munro, 2009, p. 165). From the exploration
of the people behind two specific social enterprises, it has been demonstrated that these
social entrepreneurs are innovative, multi-disciplinary thinkers who have been influenced
by both the ‘quintessential moment/experience’ and by previous exposure to business
methods. While they have an implicit conception of human rights in relation to water,
they and their customers may not apply it in practice. When justifying their work, the
social entrepreneurs tended to mix an unspoken knowledge of human rights into their
arguments; however few were well acquainted with the formal legal framework of human
rights. Overall, the research and analysis point to the fact that the unsaid ‘social’ of social
enterprise may, in fact, be an implicit knowledge of and desire to apply human rights.
The human rights thinking behind these social enterprises reflects an attempt to resolve
the ambiguity of the ‘social’ in social enterprise, an attempt to appeal to some agreed
upon ethical framework by which to justify their actions.