Two CSU Channel Islands staffers and Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus have launched the first textbook on social business.

The Yunus model of a society driven by social entrepreneurs who practice what has been also called “enlightened capitalism” has captivated an audience of mainly younger innovators.

But it also has led California to create a new category of company known as a “benefit corporation,” a category that Ventura-based Patagonia joined as the first registered member.

Now Professor Andrea Grove and Associate Vice President for Administrative Affairs Gary Berg have published “Social Business: Theory, Practice and Critical Perspective,” a first-of-its-kind text published by Springer that includes a forward by Yunus.

Channel Islands is the home of the California Institute for Social Business, founded by Yunus and Berg and headed by co-founder Grove. It’s all part of the Martin V. Smith School of Business at CSUCI and funded in part by the Conrad Hilton Foundation.