Despite widespread reports of the benefits of Community-Based Forest Management, there is little empirical evidence regarding socioeconomic outcomes for local communities. The purpose of my research was to consider the extent of innovation and sustainability in Community Forestry approaches in British Columbia, Canada. Data was collected through a qualitative case study focusing on the Lower North Thompson Community Forest Society and the Wells Gray Community Forest Corporation, and involved document review, participant observation and interviews with community members. Key socioeconomic benefits identified were additional silviculture, local employment, local participation, grant distribution, and strategic partnerships. Although increased local control through grants increases quality of life, innovative practices and diversification opportunities are underdeveloped and require greater policy support to ensure continued success. Findings point to community forests as holding potential to increase the socioeconomic sustainability of local communities, which could make them key players in support for rural areas beyond forestry. / May 2017

This project examines the discursive-material construction of 'economic empowerment' at organizations serving survivors of commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). It uses multiple qualitative methods, including interviews, observations, and document analysis at 18 different organizations supporting CSE survivors.

The intent of this paper is to investigate social enterprise, and the Swedish work environment regulations as expressed in the Organizational and social work environment provisions of the Swedish Work Environment Authority (AFS 2015:4) within the context of mental health promotion. This investigation will generate hypotheses regarding how social enterprises and the individuals working in these environments utilize work in creating mental health promotional activities. The theoretical approach to be used in this paper is twofold: Attachment Theory and Meaning Making Theory. In order to deepen our understanding of work as a mental health promotional activity the phenomena of social enterprise and AFS, 2015:4 were subjected to a textual analysis in the form of a focus group interview and followed with a semi-structured interview. The research design was transformational, and the method was mixed combining literature review, text analysis, a focus group interview and several semi-structured interviews. The population interviewed was employees and management within social enterprises in Uppsala, Sweden. The conclusion reached was that the ability for a work environment to promote health was in correlation to the quality of social relationships and the ability to understand and experience the activity of work as meaningful and meaning making. Based upon this conclusion hypothesis were generated for further research.

This thesis explores the notion of social enterprise in Greece. In particular it investigates how non-profits incorporate social enterprise in an environment facing a severe financial and social crisis. The study is done through a participatory and reflective research approach that allows the emergence of enriched results. The review of the existing literature in this area revealed that despite the lack of a universal definition, the concept of social enterprise has generally been viewed positively and has raised the expectations for social and economic transformation. Policy makers expect social enterprises to become a lever out of the crisis of reducing state funding and contribute to financial and social change. Until recently, the common assumption was that social enterprises emerge bottom-up and constitute the most ethical option of social welfare services provision after the failure of the state and the markets to provide for society. Hence, non-profits were encouraged to adopt entrepreneurial techniques to support their social purpose as a way out of the financial problems they are facing. The great interest on the effect of 'social enterprise' on the traditional non-profit sector comes from the peculiarity of the Greek case with the top-down enforcement of the concept coupled with a history of corruption in civil society. Even though researchers following a more critical stance towards social enterprises challenge the underlying assumptions of this new concept and raise awareness about its negative impacts, in Greece the 'social economy' and 'social enterprise' concepts are used as 'silver bullets' by policy makers. Wishing to follow this critical tradition, I proceeded with an in-depth case study drawing upon participant observation and reflective methods. In locating my research in an active non-profit organisation in Athens, I intended that my findings could be extended to similar organisations. This thesis found that in Greece, the top-down implementation of the concept allowed non-profits to incidentally adopt this rhetoric in order to ensure their long-term survival and then in turn influence the way society makes sense of social enterprises. The institutional environment further hinders the growth of the sector as it directs the social enterprises and non-profits towards public procurement making and any other alternative seems impossible. Lastly, based on the above findings, I conclude that social economy despite its infancy faces the risk of corruption. Hence, I suggest that policy makers' support, rather than guide, social enterprises to allow them to achieve their full potential. Future research and practice need to focus on raising awareness for the social economy and assessing social impact as a way to improve transparency and gain the trust of society.

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.

The importance of social entrepreneurship has been growing for the last 3 decades and is recently accelerating. South Africa presents one of the most mature social entrepreneurial sectors among developing countries and the magnitude of its impact has become critical to national economic growth and society as a whole. Many roles have risen through the spreading of this particular way of conceiving business, the role of mentors being a particularly meaningful one. Mentoring is usually related to the difficulties social entrepreneurs and operators within the field have in dealing with the variables present in a free market. Most studies concerning mentoring have been focused on business organizations or entrepreneurs. Literature approaches various interesting themes within these two contexts that can help as a guide to explore the nature of mentoring in the social entrepreneurial field. This study puts its focus on the nature of mentoring in the sole social entrepreneurial field as it is understood by its prime actors: the mentors. In doing so it adopts a qualitative approach characterised by semi-structured and open ended interviews with eight experienced mentors from as many different organizations. The final results indicate that differences with the business sector are not extreme and the two fields often intertwine, with many beneficial outcomes for the social sector. However, they also illustrate that there are some aspects very specific to the sole social entrepreneurial field. Among those are the stronger sensibility toward others, the energy infused, the type of relationships, the unique motivations and a broader reach of outcomes for the mentoring activity itself. All these aspects lead mentoring in the social entrepreneurial field not only to be a useful phenomenon for involved entrepreneurs, but potentially an activity spreading its beneficial consequences to entire communities.

This thesis deals with the social enterprise and the social enterprising NPOs and the identification of societial marketing in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to investigate the service innovation, brand image, and Societial Marketing identification, and their interrelationships within different social enterprise patterns in Taiwan. In addition, it's further to point out the differences among three types of social enterprises : public social charity, culture education, and culture art. Studies on the social enterprise and the social enterprising NPOs and the identification of societial marketing in Taiwan in Kaohsiung resident as a research objective. The purpose of this study is to investigate the four variables of service innovation, ie. new social welfare, new service concept, new client interface, and new service delivery system; the three variables of brand image, ie. types of brand association, favorability of brand associations, uniqueness of brand associations and societial marketing identification, and their interrelationships within different social enterprise patterns in Taiwan. With regard to sampling methods, use of non-random sample of convenience sampling, this study a total of 426 questionnaires were recovered, an effective sample of 393 copies. The results of the study were as follow: showed that service innovation, brand image and identity among social marketing does have a significant positive correlation, however, different patterns of social enterprise in the relationship between the various variables are showed some negative correlation. The results can be summarized under five main conclusions: ¡Ð When the social enterprises want to input the concept of service innovation in the organization, it should not ignore the social welfare and social entrepreneur of the specific conduct. Because the service innovation and brand image can simultaneously enhance the community identification. ¡Ð Social enterprise of public social charity: It should continue to construct indicators for sustainable management and for the evaluation of internal and external organization. ¡Ð Social enterprise of culture education: It should retain its own brand image, while aiming to enhance the new type of service and customer interface. ¡Ð Social enterprise of culture art: It Should construct new types of social welfare, and strengthen the brand values, to offer the community a better understanding of the realities of life of the art and aesthetics. ¡Ð This study also found that people generally give recognition and trust for non-profit organizations, which engaged in social enterprise with commercial or profit-making activities.

Social entrepreneurship is a phenomenon of increasing economic and cultural importance. A key challenge for social enterprises is resource acquisition. However, how social entrepreneurs acquire the resources needed to grow their ventures is not clear. Moreover, social enterprises differ from traditional ventures in several key ways which suggest that research developed from studying traditional entrepreneurs does not fully apply to social entrepreneurs. The focus of this dissertation is how social entrepreneurs use narratives to gather resources. This topic is examined using a multi-study, inductive, theory-building design based on 121 interviews, observation, and archival data. In Study 1, I interview 75 entrepreneurs, investors, and ancillary participants in the social enterprise sector. In Study 2, I construct case studies of eight technology-focused social ventures. The result is a framework explaining how differences in entrepreneurs' narrative tactics and characteristics are associated with differences in their resource acquisition success. Specifically, from Study 1 I develop a typology of social enterprise narratives, identify three narrative-types (personal, social-good, and business), and show that they possess unique elements. Findings from Study 2 demonstrate that the three narrative-types serve as the building blocks for communication with external stakeholders, particularly investors and the media. I find that successful social entrepreneurs used narratives to engage in two tactics -- tailoring and linking -- and constructed narratives with a unique characteristic: multiplexity. These findings contribute to three literatures that formed the basis of the study -- social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial resource acquisition, and organizational narrative theory -- and have implications for work on competing institutional logics and emotion in stakeholder evaluations. / text

Among the key issues that arise in research of cooperatives are their supposedly hybrid nature and how they are able to balance both social and economic goals. I contend that the concept of 'needs' has become an important differentiating factor for the cooperatives I studied in Emilia Romagna. Placing this concept centrally in an analysis of cooperative practice helps to reveal the interplay between various value systems, reaching beyond arguments of the degeneration of cooperatives or the reproduction of dominant models, which both assume a one-way flow of influence. The recent history of the cooperative movement in Italy shows that these institutions have developed along with changing conceptions of need, supported by broader social movements and value systems. The cooperative network is today of central importance, and seen as an egalitarian means to share ideals and drive local innovation. However, my research shows that the instrumentalisation of the concept of 'need' also naturalises certain aspects of capitalist practice and has consequences for the enactment of other values within the cooperative. For example, in one cooperative I examined, the focus on meeting the members' needs for work was important in justifying a decision to merge with another cooperative despite a decision-making process that was seen as less than entirely democratic. This orientation also justified the use of precarious labour, and the need to protect members' livelihoods helped to justify low pay for internships and municipal job placements, as opposed to furthering the cooperative values of equity and equality. While the cooperative workers desired an element of personal relations, this was sometimes seen to be at odds with the focus on production and the maintenance of jobs. The marketing of more ethical products with reference to their social added value highlighted the central role of individual consumer citizens in bringing about change, which also reinforced divisions within the cooperatives based on who was more or less able to make these choices. In conclusion, I argue that while 'needs', like 'added value', can unite social and economic concepts of value, this also naturalises certain aspects of capitalist practice, particularly in this case where employment emerges as the primary need to be met. This leads me to suggest that the focus on meeting needs, as opposed to focusing on achieving specific ideals such as democracy and equality, may not be as effective to create alternative practice.

This study gives a rich and detailed account of the lived experiences of social entrepreneurs in Gauteng, South Africa. The research seeks to give a better understanding of their day-to-day experiences in their journeys as social entrepreneurs. The paper also sheds light into their motivations, the key resources needed to start the enterprise, the types of support and benefits received and the challenges faced to date. A qualitative research approach was used to gather data through face-to-face in-depth interviews. Judgement and purposive sampling techniques were used to select twelve respondents for the research. Findings of the research show that social entrepreneurs are motivated by a social objective and that this takes precedence over personal wealth creation. Social entrepreneurs need both tangible and intangible resources to begin a social enterprise. Although financial capital is imperative, this does not hinder the social entrepreneur from addressing the identified social need. Social entrepreneurs often receive support from different sources, such as the community and family. A common challenge faced is the inability to balance the double bottom line comprising of social impact and financial sustainability. Despite the challenges faced, these social entrepreneurs are persistent in making a difference. They are often celebrated by their communities, family members, and, most importantly, the beneficiaries for the positive impact they have made / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted