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Welcome to Group 4's Website that tackles the Question:

Is Social Enterprise the Solution to Deprived Communities Around the World?

Learning Objectives

 

The purpose of this pack is to address these learning objectives:

  1. Distinguish the difference between commercial enterprise and social enterprise

  2. Introduce, apply and critique theoretical perspectives of social enterprise

  3. Introduce the concept of 'deprived communities'

  4. Introduce success and failure in social enterprise, and understanding the critical perspectives of prevailing gaps

  5. Discuss case studies of success and failure ventures in deprive communities

  6. Tackle the issue of social enterprise as the solution within deprived communities

 

Introduction

 

This question will be tackled from a context rich perspective, where both social enterprise and the deprived are entirely embedded in context. We will define these key terms, that will look into recent discourse that has attempted to track down the social enterprise within the deprived.

 

We will first distinguish between normal enterprise and enterprise:

 

Corporate Enterprise:

  • Aims to maximise shareholder value

  • Operates in a market to make money

  • Operates competitively

  • Measures success according to the profit

 

Social Enterprise:

  • Aims at creating social change in solving a social problem

  • Answers social needs in a sustainable manner

  • Measures success according to the social impact created and the economic viability of the enterprise

 

A number of theoretical definitions around the area can be found by naivgating to the definitions page. Following from this our approach to the question is highlighted below. You can navigate to each page by clicking the yellow button.

 

 

Social Enterprise

 

The Social In 'Social Enterprise

 

Deprived Communities

Our Approach:

Quadruple Bottom Line

State and Market Failure

Bottom of the Pyramid

Voluntary Market Failure

Corporate Moral Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility

 

“Failure of the enterprise is conceptualized in terms of protecting the community, of letting them down. Success, equally, is articulated as recognition and resilience, rather than performance”

Howorth and Parkinson (2008)

 

These Cases provide examples of both success and failure within social enterprise. We also show a case study that shows how contextual the question truly is

 

This will take you to an activity page where the aim is to create a presentation on one of the two case studies

 

We have provided a summary, which in short comes to the agreement that social enterprise is only a tool to be utilised rather than its own entity that can provide a solution by itself

 

A Brief History

 

Social enterprise is a relatively new entity. It appears to take on different meanings between people, space, context and time. Teasdale (2011) sums up the different stages within the UK by embedding it into different contexts for its perceived usefulness. It was 'initially used in England to reposition co-operatives and mutuals as new models for public and private ownership' (Teasdale, 2011: 11). 'Social enterprise became positioned as a tool to combat market failure and regenerate deprived areas in line with policy emphases of the time' (Teasdale, 2011: 11). Following this, 'the social enterprise construct expanded to fully incorporate social businesses' (Teasdale, 2011: 12) in order to mitigate state failure. 'The social enterprise construct was widened further so as to incorporate earned income discourses' (Teasdale, 2011: 15). What this meant was that social enterprise began to move in with the third sector due to its failure, as it became a revenue stream for which to deliver public services.

Taken from Teasdale (2011)

Click here for the Presentation

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