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Chapter 5
Prototypes and Social Business Models:

International Case Studies

Over the past century, technological advancements have radically transformed industrial
structures and profoundly reshaped patterns of work and daily life across all ages and genders.
While these changes have created new forms of employment and rapidly increased income from
emerging ventures, they have also imposed serious social costs, ranging from worker health
issues and growing inequality to exploitation, industrial pollution, and environmental degradation.
Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, contends that economic
development under capitalism, driven by prevailing industrial and commercial policies, does not
support small-scale investors. Instead, it favors large enterprises and those with vested interests
linked to the state, leading to unfair competition between major and minor players. Even the

education system, he argues, is geared toward producing industrial laborers rather than
entrepreneurs.

Muhammad Yunus also believes that human beings are natural entrepreneurs. He argues that the
instinct for survival has existed since the Stone Age, when humans were constantly searching for
ways to stay alive. This survival instinct, he suggests, forms the foundation of human
entrepreneurship. However, modern education has conditioned people to become job seekers,
placing greater value on employment than on enterprise or job creation. As a result, our
entrepreneurial instincts have been stifled by external forces, particularly education systems that

emphasize memorization over critical thinking. To truly foster grassroots entrepreneurs, a
dedicated ecosystem is needed, one that nurtures small-scale enterprise development. This is
especially vital for social entrepreneurs, who must pursue both profit and social impact. A
supportive ecosystem or network is therefore essential for social enterprises to take root and
thrive.

The primary aim of this chapter is to expand and deepen the understanding of modern social
business networks, with a particular focus on Grameen Bank. Over more than five decades,
Grameen Bank has developed a service model that has become a global benchmark for social

lending institutions. This chapter seeks to illustrate the breadth of opportunities and the
ecosystem that supports social enterprises. Unless otherwise stated, the examples in Section 5.1
are drawn from three of Muhammad Yunus’s four books: (1) Building Social Business: The New
Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs (2007), (2) Creating a World
Without Poverty (2010), and (3) A World of Three Zeros (2017). Beyond founding model
organizations, Yunus also established a prototype ecosystem tailored to developing countries,

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