Leading a Large‐Scale Distributed Social Enterprise

Distributed social enterprises with national or international footprints face unique management challenges. To cast a lens on these challenges, we analyze the case of the US‐based social enterprise Goodwill Industries, a century‐old, hybrid nonprofit organization with annual business‐related revenue of more than $5.5 billion. The economic benefits that accrue from this business are used to support a social mission that has continued to evolve for more than 100 years. We explore how Goodwill is organized and how its management works to continually balance economic and social objectives to facilitate long‐term success.     

Measuring to Improve Versus Measuring to Prove: Understanding the Adoption of Social Performance Measurement Practices in Nascent Social Enterprises

Social enterprises are described as organizations with dual objectives—social and commercial. While the measurement of commercial performance is relatively straightforward and well understood, our understanding of the factors related to measuring social performance is more ambiguous. Is the adoption of social performance measurement (SPM) practices more related to external pressures, such as the need to demonstrate legitimacy to funders and peers, or is it more closely related to the growing rationalization within the social sector? We examine the relationship between external and internal factors and the adoption of SPM using a novel dataset of 1864 nascent social enterprises from around the world. Our findings suggest support for the argument that the adoption of SPM in social enterprise is related to the growing rationalization of the social sector, which challenges some of the past research on this topic, and provides a more nuanced perspective of SPM in social enterprise.     

关于“十二五”时期上海社会发展的初步思考

社会发展的核心是促进人的全面发展,因此“十二五”时期上海的社会发展,应当按既定体系框架继续深化完善,落实“十一五”时期提出的工作原则和目标,逐步夯实未来长远发展的基础。特别要注意处理好社会发展与经济发展的关系、率先探索与衔接国家政策体系的关系。建议“十二五”时期上海社会发展的基本思路,重点落实在完善社会保障体系、坚持公益性和产业性相分离以及创新社会管理机制等方面。     

The emergence of social enterprises through the initiative of self-organized citizens: an analysis starting from Olson's approach to the logic of collective action

This article provides indirect empirical evidence with which to verify whether the logic of collective action maintained by Olson represents a sound theoretical approach to social enterprises. Our hypothesis is that, if a positive effect of participation in social enterprises on pro-social attitudes of members exists, when considering these organizations we should move from the approach proposed by Olson to the one proposed by Putnam, in the Tocqueville tradition. Overall, the existing empirical and experimental evidence seems to suggest that Putnam's approach to voluntary organizations is better able than Olson's to capture the organizational behavior of social enterprises, confirming that initiatives by self-organized citizens should be considered a possible convincing explanation for their emergence.     

Human rights at the heart of the social work curriculum

ABSTRACT

Social work policy and practice all over the world continue to face the impact of the neoliberal agenda. Similarly, social work education has been subject to the economic and political changes, with an increasing emphasis on a discourse of ‘evidence-based practice’. However, it is the core of social work programs in higher education to initiate students in the fundamental values of social work, as they are recognized in the global definition of social work. In order to prepare future social workers for their assignment, human rights should be given an explicit place in the social work curricula at Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences.

For human rights to gain more attention in social work programs in higher education, a Manifesto was written by lecturers’ social work in the Netherlands and Flanders, with a 5-point program to include human rights in the social work curricula. In this article, we elaborate on the five objectives that are presented in the Manifesto. Throughout the paper, we introduce small ‘case examples’ of how human rights can be integrated in education. These experiences show the importance of developing a particular social work perspective on human rights that is found in the idea of ‘human rights from below.’     

Social Enterprise in Mental Health: An Overview

ABSTRACT

This article provides an overview of the models and concepts of social enterprise utilized for and by people with serious mental illness histories. Although social enterprise in mental health is not new, the naming of it as social enterprise and the attention these efforts have garnered is new. This article will provide a brief history of social enterprise in formal social services; review some conceptual issues and differences between social enterprise in Europe and North America—the two major current centers of its activity; and conclude with some observations of the ways in which mental health social enterprises are developing.     

The state and future of social service enterprises—a Finnish case

There has been a rapid increase in private social services in Finland, where the tradition of social care services has placed the main emphasis on public services. The aim of this article is to compare the situation of Finnish social service enterprises in 2001 and 2005/2006, in the light of two national surveys, in order to increase knowledge about the state and the future of such enterprises as providers of social care. Particular attention is paid to the profiles of men and women as entrepreneurs, as these differed somewhat. The composition of private care enterprises and their management remained fairly similar between 2001 and 2005/2006. Most of the enterprises were owned by middle-aged women with an extensive experience of social and health care. The owners of the older enterprises were more pessimistic about the future than the owners of the more recently-established firms. Social workers have not been active in setting up firms, but the public–private processes should be steered and evaluated from the social work perspective, too, because they are actors who have a relevant part to play in the long-term co-operation and development work of public and private social services.     

上海国资引领战略性新兴产业发展

上海国资在战略性新兴产业发展中有其独特的优势,同时也存在一系列问题。明确提出上海国资发展战略性新兴产业的战略目标、战略定位,正确选择上海国资战略性新兴产业的重点发展领域,系统论述上海国资引领战略性新兴产业发展的具体路径,提出六种发展模式和七大产业平台建设,以及上海国资引领战略性新兴产业发展的主要配套政策措施等。     

Bottom-up social enterprises in Romania. Case study – Retirees’ Mutual Aid Association

The purpose of this article is to present and analyze the organizational profile and distinctive development pattern of a successful bottom-up social enterprise in Romania, namely, the Retirees’ Mutual Aid Association (RMAA). Romania has recently rediscovered the world of social economy which brings together various organizations, from associations and foundations to cooperatives and commons, sharing a common interest in developing entrepreneurial activities to support social goals. In an ideological and public policy context which holds back the opening of the public market to the third sector and social economy actors, setting and running up such organizations remains a challenge. On the other hand, the isomorphic pressure exerted by the EU has resulted in a type of legislation targeted at social enterprises which focuses almost exclusively on work integration social enterprises. Nonetheless, Romania also features social enterprises that are not externally driven but developed bottom-up, starting from the needs of their members and of the communities in which they are established and developed. Using the data of extensive research conducted on social economy entities in Romania, we will present an organizational case study of a successful bottom-up social enterprise, namely RMAA.     

Pathways to sector selection: A conceptual framework for social enterprises

As hybrid organizations with financial and social objectives, social enterprises must balance competing logics for governance, stakeholders, and outcomes when considering organizational design and structure. The existing legal landscape for organizations exacerbates this dilemma by forcing social enterprises to incorporate as either a nonprofit or for‐profit organization. This research examines the entity formation process for social enterprises by presenting sector choice as an interaction among four factors: equity financing, organizational lineage, human capital, and funding environment. Using a qualitative comparative case analysis, this research demonstrates that contingent factors drive sector choice when legal incentives and institutional pressures are unclear. For those choosing nonprofit forms, the status of the parent organization—the organizational lineage—is determinative. For those operating in the for‐profit context, human capital is predictive. The resulting conceptual framework contributes to existing organizational theory on hybrid organizations by presenting the sector selection process as independent of the motives or legal incentives typically associated with sector choice. This research concludes with a discussion on the advantages of delaying the formal sector declaration process.     

Factors Affecting Australia's Refugee Policy: The Case of the Kosovars

This article seeks to explain Australia's refugee policy and to identify the various objectives and factors that influence the development of that policy.
Australia's refugee programme seeks to: provide a humanitarian response and protection to individual refugees; participate responsibly in the international community; honour its Convention obligations; further the interests of the people of Australia; meet high standards of administration and; acknowledge as much as possible changes in refugee populations.
In fulfilling these objectives, Australian governments must weigh and balance various competing factors. These include: humanitarian responsibility, international obligations, social, political, economic and foreign policy factors, as well as efficient administration.
In balancing the relative importance of these factors, the Federal government hopes to fulfil all its refugee and humanitarian objectives. However, the pluralistic nature of Australian society and the often conflicting ideals associated with protection of Australia's interests and the preservation of the rights of refugees, means that fulfilment of these objectives is difficult.
This article examines the Australian government's response to the Kosovar conflict, to assess the relative success Australia had in fulfilling its refugee policy objectives and identifying the various factors that produced the final result.     

Social Enterprises and the EU’s Public Procurement Market

European social enterprises’ participation in the public procurement process is low, even if the European public procurement law allows using special provisions for these entities. Encouraging the participation of social enterprises in the public procurement process is an important part of the effort to modernize the EU social policy. This paper demonstrates that, despite the great importance of social enterprises for the European economy, strategies on the access of social enterprises to the EU’s public procurement market are less known by the employees of the public contracting authorities in EU Member States.     

Social Activists: Lessons for Community Psychology

In a graduate class in community psychology, each student studied the lives and achievements of social activists. This article integrates the work and accomplishments of 5 social activists into a conceptual and methodological framework for social change within community psychology. These activists worked on issues including national liberation, women's suffrage, the rights of migrant workers, and community development. The methods used by these activists are particularly relevant to the field of community psychology. The article discusses the implications of the work and accomplishments of these social change agents.     

Culturally Competent Social Work Practice with Veterans: An Overview of the U.S. Military

Despite social work's longstanding history of serving veterans, few resources support culturally competent practice with this population. If social workers are to serve veterans effectively and efficiently, a basic understanding of the U.S. military is essential. This article presents a basic overview of U.S. military including its structure and history, the propensity to enlist in the armed forces, culture, and training methods and objectives. With an understanding of these aspects of military service and continued effort to learn about their client's military experience, social workers will be prepared to provide culturally competent services consistent with the profession's values and ethics.     

Teaching Note—Infusing Social Justice Into Doctoral Programs of Social Welfare: An Incremental Approach

This article describes an effort to further infuse social justice education into doctoral programs in social welfare. It articulates the rationale and tactical approaches for aligning mission statements with the operational realities of university contexts. Within 1 school of social work, doctoral students with diverse orientations to social justice came together to articulate a vision for social justice education that expanded the educational contract between students and the institution by enhancing their respective opportunities and responsibilities in the areas of scholarship, teaching, and service. This article shares 30 learning objectives emergent from an incremental change process for enhancing social justice education at the doctoral level and reflects on the strengths and limitations of this approach to advancing social justice priorities.     

The Factors that Make and Unmake Migration Policies1

Migration policies often fail to achieve their declared objectives or have unintended consequences. This article discusses three sets of reasons for this: factors arising from the social dynamics of the migratory process; factors linked to globalization and transnationalism; and factors within political systems. Effective policies are often hampered by the one‐sided explanatory models used to explain migration, as well as by interest conflicts in both domestic and international politics. In many cases this leads to migration policies with contradictory objectives or hidden agendas. The article goes on to discuss some elements of a conceptual framework for improving policy formation and possible components of fairer and more effective migration policies at the national, regional and global levels.     

Practices of exclusion and injustices within social work education

Despite being a major influence, there are few studies investigating the impact of accreditation on the social justice remit of social work education. This article is guided by two questions: What are the social justice responsibilities of professional associations regulating social work education via accreditation? and What contribution can institutional ethnography make to understanding and change in this area? Drawing on a data-subset from a larger institutional ethnography, selected narratives of two informants, a social work student and a social work lecturer, are discussed. These narratives reveal how key documents of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) used to re-accredit social work courses influence how the study and work of the informants happens. Analysis of the narratives and documents bring the textually organised process of the re-accreditation of social work programmes into view. While this article reports on an Australian context, the issues raised concerning social injustice, epistemological equity and the implicit curriculum are relevant for social work education across many parts of the world. The contribution of this article is to recommend institutional ethnography as a research approach to generate understanding and transformation of organisations with social justice objectives, to redress exclusion and injustice.     

The Role of Household Social Organization in the Structure of Rural Economies: Comparing Forest Resource Dependent and Agriculturally Dependent Regions in Russia

Sociologists have examined how structural economic change affects household social organization and generation of household income from different sources. The introduction of elements of a market economy into rural Russia in the early 1990s provides a unique opportunity to examine these relationships. Much of the work on this topic, however, has been conducted in black earth zone, agriculturally dependent regions. Less attention has been given to non‐black‐earth zone, forest resource dependent regions. This article addresses this limitation by comparing the relationships between household income generation strategies and household social organization in a 2009 survey of villages in three forest resource dependent regions in northwest Russia with findings from a 2006 survey of households in nine agricultural regions of Russia. Income generated from enterprises based on household social organization—household labor and social helping networks—is substantially greater in agriculturally dependent than in forest resource dependent regions. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding intranational regional differences in the relationship between economic systems, household social organization, and rural household economies as well as the obstacles facing policymakers and environmentalists who attempt to shift household income generation strategies away from an environmentally harmful lumber industry to income generation activities that are less harmful to the environment.     

To what extent is social security spending associated with enhanced firm-level performance? A case study of SMEs in Indonesia

Although the relationship between social protection and enterprise performance is much debated in the literature, evidence is particularly limited in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises in developing economies. Using census data from 2010 to 2014, this article examines how the provision of social security influenced business performance in Indonesia. The author finds that increased social security spending of 10 per cent is associated with a per-worker revenue gain of up to 2 per cent. Moreover, profits are not found to decrease with increased social protection coverage, suggesting that increasing worker benefits may be a worthwhile business investment.     

加强新生代农民工培训工作的思考

新生代农民工是提高企业实力、推进工业化发展和促进城市健康发展的重要社群,他们是经济发展的重要力量,其工作合力和能量巨大。提升他们的素质与能力是科学发展的内容与任务,是实现人的全面发展和改善、提高社会质量的重要标志。农民工素质的提升关乎着企业、城市和社会的发展及水平;重视、培训新生代农民工是制造业与社会发展之首务,它有助于提升人口质量、企业品质与企业竞争力,有利于达成包容性增长和全面实现小康。