The presented thesis with the title "Business Enterprise" aims to comprehensively analyse the business enterprise as it is governed by the current Civil Code. The business enterprise is one of the key topics at the borderline of civil and commercial law and is an important institute connected with the day-to-day operation of the entrepreneurial activity. The thesis begins with a summary of the historical context, the interpretation of which is contained in the first chapter. The concept of this institute in the 19th century is analysed, thus as a subject of legal relationships, which serves to carry out entrepreneurial activity. As it is also apparent from the chapter, the concept in the second half of the 20th century was considerably different from the present, mainly because the enterprise was perceived as a legal entity. The second and third chapters, which are the main part of the thesis, follow up on the historical introduction. The second chapter deals with the definition of the business enterprise itself, and also proposes answers to the question of whether a single entrepreneur can own more than one business enterprise. An interpretation of the concept of the business enterprise is also given in comparison with the pre-war doctrine and the legal framework of the European Union, which was...

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / Social enterprises are nonprofit, for-profit or hybrid organizations that use business methods to create social change (Dees 2007; Light 2005; Martin and Osberg 2007; Neck, Brush, and Allen 2009;). If it succeeds, the social enterprise model could prove to be a viable pathway to greater social justice in an era of decreasing funding for government services and nonprofits (Emerson and Twersky 1996; Harding 2004; Murphy and Coombs 2009; Wilson 2008). However, skeptics worry that the perils of privatization, bottom-line thinking, and deceptive marketing potentially embodied by the “business methods” that social enterprises employ may undermine the potential of this new approach to solving social problems (Bateman and Chang 2012; Farmer 2009; Nega and Schneider 2014). The three articles that make up this dissertation examined the ways social entrepreneurs perceived and managed tensions between social mission and market institutional logics. Their ability (or lack thereof) to reconcile these contradictory imperatives could contribute to whether social enterprises ultimately succeed or fail as vehicles for positive social change. Social Entrepreneurs at the Crossroads: Four Approaches to Responding to Dual Institutional Logics suggests that the widely accepted characterization of social entrepreneurs as compassionate individuals motivated to address intractable social problems innovatively (Alvord, Brown and Letts 2004; Lehner and Germak 2014; Mair and Marti 2006; Miller, Grimes, McMullen and Vogus 2012) is simplistic. From in-depth interviews with twenty (inter)nationally recognized social entrepreneurs I derived four distinct categories: Disillusioned Dreamers, Social Capitalists, Do-Somethings, and Bridgebuilders. Half of these respondents did not perceive tensions between logics; another quarter did not wrestle with the tensions they perceived. Only the Bridgebuilders perceived tensions and then persisted in focusing on both logics and sets of actors to harness synergies. As a result, only Bridgebuilders offer a truly hybrid model for social mission work within the current economic context, whereas the others hew toward a single dominant logic. One Size Does Not Fit All: Legal Form and US WISEs focuses on work integration social enterprises (WISEs), organizations that address the chronic unemployment of marginalized populations. The data demonstrated that contrary to the expectation that WISEs would exemplify “contested” organizations (Besharov and Smith 2014), eight of the ten WISEs studied did not experience significant conflict between social mission and market logics. Rather, WISEs generally had one logic that dominated their operations: a market logic in for-profit WISEs and a social mission logic in nonprofit WISEs. Workers’ employability emerged as an important variable, with for-profit WISEs creating jobs for more employable populations and nonprofits offering job training and “wraparound” services to harder-to-employ populations. Only two WISEs experienced substantial tensions, when social entrepreneurs attempted to prioritize a job training/services mission within a for-profit form. This data demonstrates that a job creation approach aligns best with a for-profit WISE form and a job training/services approach to a nonprofit WISE form. However, neither form has succeeded in creating a system-transforming model that successfully combines revenue generation with a robust training/services/job creation mission. This suggests that breaking traditional nonprofit and for-profit patterns to deliver substantial market and social mission outcomes within a single organization is a significant challenge. Stakeholder Resistance to Social Enterprise Hybridity examines how social entrepreneurs perceive the support of key stakeholders in their attempts to balance competing social mission and market logics. Despite evidence of social interest in ethical capitalism, this data suggests that well-resourced stakeholders push social entrepreneurs to prioritize price, revenue generation, and measurement. This includes both traditional organizational stakeholders and hybrid-specific stakeholders. Customers and clients demanded low prices and high value. Donors demanded quantification and impact measurement. Investors expected market rate financial return. Finally, social enterprise gatekeeper organizations (fellowship granting bodies) were focused on the market logic characteristics of sustainability, scale, and entrepreneurial ability, pushing the field toward market logic modes of operating. Social entrepreneurs generally responded by acquiescing to pressure to emphasize a market logic in their interactions. Counter to current literature that suggests social entrepreneurs should problem-solve to avoid single logic dominance, social entrepreneurs generally allowed price, business strategy, competition and measurement to shape their interactions with stakeholders. Given the importance of stakeholder buy-in for organizational legitimacy, the field of social enterprise needs to find a way to create and capture stakeholder support for dual logics rather than depending on individual social entrepreneurs to withstand the push toward marketization. Overall, despite persistent efforts at creative solutions to social problems by some individuals, the research shows a strong undertow for social enterprises to adopt business logics and business models. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Estágio realizado na Business Net Partners - e orientado pelo Dipl.-Wi.-Ing. Christian Schwarzkopf / Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Industrial e Gestão. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012

The purpose of this study is to provide profound elements of successful social enterprise that are reliable and valid and can serve as guidelines for those who want to examine how a SE is performing.This work is based on a single case study of social enterprise to analyze the fundamentals of successful social enterprises. It tests the feasibility of previous theories, model and characteristics that are used in evaluating nonprofits organizations. We use interviews, direct observation and questionnaires. There were five elements of successful social enterprise that were re-created in the study, namely; social wealth, networking efficient opportunities, innovation and adaptation towards financial independence, independence from volunteers and generation of economic wealth. Social benefits should be considered the most important aspect while economic wealth should not be taken for granted although it ought not to consider being the primary concern.

Today, knowledge resources have become one of enterprise¡¦s important assets and are the key factor for an enterprise to gain competitive advantage. Bill Gates in his book ¡uDigital Nervous System¡v pointed out that enterprise's competition is the competitions of knowledge and network in the future. Therefore, much attention has been paid to how knowledge is managed in supporting employee¡¦s knowledge activities. This study presents a methodology for classifying and modeling the enterprise knowledge for knowledge sharing based on Microsoft enterprise information portal solution. This methodology enables enterprise policymakers and system implementers to develop high-level strategies that fit user¡¦s demands in knowledge sharing and facilitate the implementation process. To illustrate the methodology, we use a real case from chemical industry to test the usability (including the concepts, application, and advantages) of the proposed methodology. The results indicate that with this approach, the implementation of enterprise information portal can be more easily and systematically.

<p>Information is an important business asset in today’s enterprises. Hence enterprise information security is an important system quality that must be carefully managed. Although enterprise information security is acknowledged as one of the most central areas for enterprise IT management, the topic still lacks adequate support for decision making on top-management level.</p><p>This composite thesis consists of four articles which presents the Enterprise Information Security Assessment Method (EISAM), a comprehensive method for assessing the current state of the enterprise information security. The method is useful in helping guide top-management’s decision-making because of the following reasons: 1) it is easy to understand, 2) it is prescriptive, 3) it is credible, and 4) it is efficient.</p><p>The assessment result is easy to understand because it presents a quantitative estimate. The result can be presented as an aggregated single value, abstracting the details of the assessment. The result is easy to grasp and enables comparisons both within the organization and in terms of industry in general.</p><p>The method is prescriptive since it delivers concrete and traceable measurements. This helps guide top-level management in their decisions regarding enterprise-wide information security by highlighting the areas where improvements efforts are essential.</p><p>It is credible for two reasons. Firstly, the method presents an explicit and transparent definition of enterprise information security. Secondly, the method in itself includes an indication of assessment uncertainty, expressed in terms of confidence levels.</p><p>The method is efficient because it focuses on important enterprise information security aspects, and because it takes into account how difficult it is to find security related evidence. Being resource sparse it enables assessments to take place regularly, which gives valuable knowledge for long-term decision-making.</p><p>The usefulness of the presented method, along with its development, has been verified through empirical studies at a leading electric power company in Europe and through statistical surveys carried out among information security experts in Sweden.</p><p>The success from this research should encourage further researcher in using these analysis techniques to guide decisions on other enterprise architecture attributes.</p>

Zugl.: Sankt Gallen, Univ., Diss., 2009

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-125).

An enterprise is a complex and changing entity, which is managed and maintained by humans. Enterprise architecture has been identified as an organisational strategy designed to assist enterprises with the understanding of complexity and the management of change. Acceptance, implementation and maintenance of enterprise architecture in organisations are complex and time-consuming. Work roles, responsibilities, common vocabulary, and buy-in are some of the cooperative human factors of stakeholders and participants and are believed to have an effect on the process of enterprise architecture acceptance in organisations. This study focused on identifying human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance and the question of how knowledge of these human factors can be used to assist organisations in the management of enterprise architecture acceptance. The research addressed two main research objectives: the development of a work-level-related model for enterprise architecture acceptance and a proposed method for assisting organisations with enterprise architecture acceptance. An initial set of human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance were identified through an exploratory study in one organisation. A study of existing literature was used to identify other human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance and to compile a more comprehensive list of human factors. The resulting comprehensive list of human factors was categorised into six constructed work-level-related human concerns and confirmed in more organisations. A work-level-related model for enterprise architecture acceptance was established based on the work-level-related human concerns and associated human factors. A method for organisational use and management of enterprise architecture acceptance based on the model was proposed. The result of the research is the Work-level acceptance framework for enterprise architecture (WoLAF for EA), which could contribute to understanding and managing the important aspect of human acceptance of enterprise architecture in organisations. / PhD (Information Technology)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

An enterprise is a complex and changing entity, which is managed and maintained by humans. Enterprise architecture has been identified as an organisational strategy designed to assist enterprises with the understanding of complexity and the management of change. Acceptance, implementation and maintenance of enterprise architecture in organisations are complex and time-consuming. Work roles, responsibilities, common vocabulary, and buy-in are some of the cooperative human factors of stakeholders and participants and are believed to have an effect on the process of enterprise architecture acceptance in organisations. This study focused on identifying human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance and the question of how knowledge of these human factors can be used to assist organisations in the management of enterprise architecture acceptance. The research addressed two main research objectives: the development of a work-level-related model for enterprise architecture acceptance and a proposed method for assisting organisations with enterprise architecture acceptance. An initial set of human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance were identified through an exploratory study in one organisation. A study of existing literature was used to identify other human factors affecting enterprise architecture acceptance and to compile a more comprehensive list of human factors. The resulting comprehensive list of human factors was categorised into six constructed work-level-related human concerns and confirmed in more organisations. A work-level-related model for enterprise architecture acceptance was established based on the work-level-related human concerns and associated human factors. A method for organisational use and management of enterprise architecture acceptance based on the model was proposed. The result of the research is the Work-level acceptance framework for enterprise architecture (WoLAF for EA), which could contribute to understanding and managing the important aspect of human acceptance of enterprise architecture in organisations. / PhD (Information Technology)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015