Framing Social Problems in Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is perceived as a legitimate and innovative solution to social problems. Yet, when one looks at the literature one finds that the social problems that the SE movement seeks to address and how these problems are identified and defined are not studied. This lack of attention to the defining of social problems in SE has implications for the domain for problems do not exist unless they are recognized and defined, and those that define problems have influence on how these will eventually be addressed. Our paper presents an analysis of framing activities in SE done by the actors involved in the development and promotion of the SE movement. Our analysis reveals that these actors are concerned with creating an ecosystem to support social entrepreneurs. Critical analysis of discourses of these actors reveals a powerful mobilization discourse, one that supports social entrepreneurs as the agents of change. We also find that as the SE movement emerged at the beginning of a cycle of protest against capitalist systems, their framing of SE as system changing of these very systems therefore finds strong resonance with a wide variety of actors.     

社会信息化水平评价体系模型:基于社会福利角度的构建

在界定社会信息化内涵的基础上,提出了社会信息化的福利目标,并从社会福利最大化的角度来评价社会信息化的基本水平。同时从社会信息化客观水平、信息化观念、信息化制度安排三个方面弄清社会信息化政策与社会信息化的互动效应,进而提出了社会信息化的福利函数。     

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Social Enterprise

In this article, we contend that due to their size and emphasis upon addressing external social concerns, the corporate relationship between social enterprises, social awareness and action is more complex than whether or not these organisations engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). This includes organisations that place less emphasis on CSR as well as other organisations that may be very proficient in CSR initiatives, but are less successful in recording practices. In this context, we identify a number of internal CSR markers that may be applied to measuring the extent to which internal CSR practices are being observed. These considerations may be contrasted with the evidence that community based CSR activities is often well developed in private sector small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) (Observatory of European SMEs, 2002), a situation which may be replicated in social enterprises especially those that have grown from micro-enterprises embedded in local communities. We place particular emphasis upon the implications for employee management. Underpinning our position is the Aristotelian-informed capabilities approach, a theory of human development and quality of life, developed by Sen (1992; 1999) and Nussbaum (1999) which has been developed further, in an organisational context, (e.g., Cornelius, 2002); Cornelius and Gagnon, 2004; Gagnon and Cornelius, 1999; Vogt, 2005. We contend that the capabilities approach offers additional insights into CSR in social enterprises in general and internal CSR activity in particular. Our article concludes with proposals for future research initiatives and reflections upon social enterprise development from a capabilities perspective.     

Social Facilitation

Abstract

Social facilitation, the theory, originated out of the field of experimental social psychology as a means of explaining individual's behavior in social situations. Social facilitation is described as enhancing one's dominant response simply by being in the presence of others. Social facilitation, while not widely applied to consumer behavior, holds hope of becoming an interesting and useful tool in attempting to predict consumer behavior, specifically, behavior in particular buying situations. This paper examines social facilitation theory, where the presence of others is central, as a good predictor of consumer behavior in shopping situations, like: store crowding and waiting in line. Thus, the following critical areas of social facilitation are explored: mere presence of others, distraction-conflict, evaluation apprehension, and crowding. Before these areas can be applied, it is necessary to investigate the origin of social facilitation, the theory.     

Deriving Meaning for Social Franchising From Commercial Franchising and Social Enterprise

Auntie Anne's Pretzels, the American Red Cross, and IKEA are franchises for a social benefit, but are they social franchises? There is a diversity of perceptions of what is meant by the term social franchising but no consensus on the precise meaning. Given that social franchising is a relatively new area of research and that a crucial first step in research on any topic is to define its parameters, this article derives a set of indicators for the phenomenon of social franchising by bringing together three strands of scholarship: social franchising, commercial franchising, and social enterprise.     

The Social Entrepreneurship Zone

Social entrepreneurship is still in the developmental stage as a field of inquiry. In this article we introduce the concept of the social entrepreneurship zone. This new construct positions social entrepreneurship relative to the ways organizations plan to implement social change and the degrees to which they apply business practices to do so. Two new categories of organizations, social transformation entrepreneurial ventures and social improvement entrepreneurial ventures, reside in the social entrepreneurship zone. This categorization separates social entrepreneurial ventures into 2 distinct groups with their own unique set of characteristics. The social entrepreneurship zone construct should help researchers and other stakeholders better understand this emerging field so it can be further studied and developed.     

Loyalty to Social Ventures in Social Media: The Role of Social Cause Involvement,Identification, and Commitment

Recently, more social organizations are engaging in market transactions to achieve financial self-reliance. In today’s highly competitive market, it is imperative for such social ventures to bolster long-term support from their consumers through every possible point of access, such as social media. Given the importance of social media in enhancing customer relationships, this study examines factors that promote consumers’ loyalty toward social ventures, focusing on intentions to participate in cause-related activities and opinion-sharing behavior via social media. Data obtained from 304 US consumers confirmed that consumer involvement, identification, and commitment were key determinants of consumer loyalty in social media. The results also showed that the effect of involvement was mediated by identification and commitment. The findings suggest that social ventures should not only attract interested segments through social media, but also engage and enhance their sense of belonging and commitment.     

Linking Social Entrepreneurship and Social Change: The Mediating Role of Empowerment

Entrepreneurship is increasingly considered to be integral to development; however, social and cultural norms impact on the extent to which women in developing countries engage with, and accrue the benefits of, entrepreneurial activity. Using data collected from 49 members of a rural social enterprise in North India, we examine the relationships between social entrepreneurship, empowerment and social change. Innovative business processes that facilitated women’s economic activity and at the same time complied with local social and cultural norms that constrain their agency contributed to changing the social order itself. We frame emancipatory social entrepreneurship as processes that (1) empower women and (2) contribute to changing the social order in which women are embedded.     

Why B-to-B CEOs Should Be More Social on Social Media

In the era of social media more is demanded of CEOs to project a charismatic and personable public face for the company. Aside from their executive duties, CEOs are now called upon to perform this important 'personal marketing' role through their active engagement on social media. Yet studies show that CEOs, especially those of B-to-B companies, are often reluctant to perform this function – less than 50% have any significant social media presence. All the same, it is evident that social media offers numerous benefits to CEOs both at firm and personal levels: greater transparency and trust, connecting with the public, engendering the perception of authenticity, and brand-building. Additionally, millennials, as an influential demographic group, practically expect corporate CEOs to be available to communicate on social media. This practitioner note concludes with recommendations for CEOs who are venturing into the social media space for the first time.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in Colombia: Making Sense of Social Strategies

As corporate social responsibility (CSR) grows increasingly well known and accepted worldwide, organizations attempt to make sense of their social strategies bridge the gap between their current situation and what their stakeholders expect of them. If social strategies represent a potential stepping stone to more sophisticated forms of CSR, then research must investigate the strategies that organizations have adopted. After defining a framework for classifying and analyzing organizations’ social strategies, this article considers empirical evidence from 10 case studies in Colombia to reveal how organizations might build on their social involvement to engage in more sophisticated CSR practices. The framework also suggests some different trajectories that organizations might follow.     

Ethical Complexity of Social Change: Negotiated Actions of a Social Enterprise

Journal of Business Ethics - This paper investigates how social enterprises navigate through the ethical complexity of social change and extends the ethical quandaries faced by social enterprises...     

Social Media Analytics

In this contribution, we introduce “social media analytics” (SMA) as an emerging interdisciplinary research field that, in our view, will have a significant impact on social media-related future research from across different academic disciplines. Despite a number of challenges, we argue that SMA can provide other disciplines – including IS – with methodological foundations for research that focuses on social media. Furthermore, we believe that SMA can help IS research to develop decision-making or decision-aiding frameworks by tackling the issue of social media-related performance measurement, which has been challenging until now. Moreover, SMA can provide architectural designs and solution frameworks for new social media-based applications and information systems. Finally, we call for an interdisciplinary SMA research agenda as well as a significantly increased level of interdisciplinary research co-operation, which must aim to generate significant advancements in scientific methods for analyzing social media, as well as to answer research questions from across different disciplines.     

Social Enterprise and the Capability Approach: Exploring How Social Enterprises Are Humanizing Business

ABSTRACT

This mixed-method empirical study applies the capability approach, a multidimensional framework for evaluating human development, to survey 115 social enterprises on their social activities. Findings reveal that social enterprises create services and programs that seek to meet an average of three types of human needs and are more likely to target some human needs more than others. Research implications include the creation of a model and a tool for applying the capability approach to examine social value creation in social businesses. Findings contribute to practice by introducing a tool that leaders of social organizations, consultants, or training institutions may use to design the social activities of social enterprises and other social businesses and organizations.     

Social media advertising value

This research investigates the antecedents of social media advertising value, and the effect of this advertising value on online purchase intention in transitional economies in Southeast Asia. Moreover, the moderating effect of different types of social media on the relationships between the predictors and social media advertising value is also explored. The field study is conducted in Vietnam, a representative of Southeast Asian transitional economies in the current study. The results show that, in Southeast Asian transitional economies, the three social media advertising beliefs – i.e. informativeness, entertainment and credibility – have positive effects on consumers’ perceived value of social media advertising, which in turn positively influences their online purchase intention. Additionally, on social networking websites, the effects of advertising informativeness and entertainment on advertising value are weaker than those on content community websites. Nevertheless, there is no difference in the effect of advertising credibility on advertising value in both types of social media. Based on the findings presented, theoretical and managerial implications are drawn.     

The Link Between Social Movements and Corporate Social Initiatives: Toward a Multi-level Theory

This article offers a first step toward a multi-level theory linking social movements to corporate social initiatives. In particular, building on the premise that social movements reflect ideologies that direct behavior inside and outside organizations, this essay identifies mechanisms by which social movements induce firms to engage with social issues. First, social movements are able to influence the expectations that key stakeholders have about firms’ social responsibility, making corporate social initiatives more attractive. Second, through conflict or collaboration, they shape firms’ reputation and legitimacy. And third, social movements’ ideologies manifest inside the corporations by triggering organizational members’ values and affecting managerial cognition. The essay contributes to the literatures on social movements and CSR, extends the understanding of how ideologies are manifested in movement-business interactions, and generates rich opportunities for future research.     

Social Media Metrics — A Framework and Guidelines for Managing Social Media

Social media are becoming ubiquitous and need to be managed like all other forms of media that organizations employ to meet their goals. However, social media are fundamentally different from any traditional or other online media because of their social network structure and egalitarian nature. These differences require a distinct measurement approach as a prerequisite for proper analysis and subsequent management. To develop the right social media metrics and subsequently construct appropriate dashboards, we provide a tool kit consisting of three novel components. First, we theoretically derive and propose a holistic framework that covers the major elements of social media, drawing on theories from marketing, psychology, and sociology. We continue to support and detail these elements — namely ‘motives,’ ‘content,’ ‘network structure,’ and ‘social roles & interactions’ — with recent research studies. Second, based on our theoretical framework, the literature review, and practical experience, we suggest nine guidelines that may prove valuable for designing appropriate social media metrics and constructing a sensible social media dashboard. Third, based on the framework and the guidelines we derive managerial implications and suggest an agenda for future research.     

企业的社会责任

本文认为,企业的社会责任应从三个方面来认识。第一,企业最重要的社会责任是为社会提供优质的产品、优质的服务,出人才、出经验。如果企业能够给社会提供优质的产品,我们的产品就能走向全世界;能够提供优质的服务,我们就能吸引各国的客户到这里来;能够出人才,我们的企业管理人才就将通过自己的企业培养出来;能够出经验,我们这个经验就能够为其他企业所用。第二,企业必须重视经济增长的质量。在经济增长的同时,至少把自己的废水、废气、废渣处理了,减少企业所在地区的污染,改善环境。第三,企业要为社会的和谐作出贡献。不但要关心自己企业的职工,还要关心所在的社区。互助、互爱、互信,社会才能取得和谐。     

Social Media Index Valuation: Impact of Technological,Social, Economic,and Ethical Dimensions

Marketing practitioners have recognized a growing need to measure consumer-generated social media in a standard way since there are numerous social media indicators in use, making intra- and inter-company comparisons difficult. This paper identifies four social media dimensions for measurement and evaluation: technological, social, economic, and ethical; and, subsequently, measures social media. The study makes a contribution to social media literature by using analytic hierarchy process of developing a mathematical model for social media index valuation. The “social media composite index number” will serve as an industry benchmark signifying the organization's share and commitment to social media.     

North Carolina's Social Marketing Matrix Team: Using Social Marketing Concepts to Institutionalize Social Marketing Capacity in a State Health Department

SUMMARY

The North Carolina Division of Public Health has employed traditional marketing concepts to increase the capacity of its programs to use the social marketing process. A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Turning Point grant enabled this capacity building. During a three-year period there has been over a two-hundred-percent increase in programs attempting to use social marketing in the division. This article describes the division's application of social marketing concepts, reviews other theories useful to the incorporation of a social marketing approach in a social-change organization, makes suggestions for their application, and presents lessons learned.