Social and Community Entrepreneurship

Social and Community Entrepreneurship

Year: 2018-19
Course code: MGT4058
Course credits: 15
Taught: Semester 2
Course co-ordinator: Professor Colin Mason
Entry requirements: Normally admission to an honours programme in Business & Management
Available to visiting students: Yes
Contact for more information: Cherisse McLaren

Course description

This course aims to introduce students to the interdisciplinary nature of social enterprise by critically examining the contributions of social entrepreneurs to both local and international communities. The course will engage students in analysing a variety of social initiatives carried out by different kinds of organizations ranging from Corporate Social Responsibility of multi-national corporations to small, community-based organizations.  The course will explore how the concept of social entrepreneurship applies to both developed and developing countries.

Aims

To provide students with an understanding of:

  1. The nature of social and community enterprises, what they are, why they exist and the reasons for the recent growth in social entrepreneurship
  2. the different types of social enterprises
  3. the backgrounds, skill sets and motivations of social and community entrepreneurs
  4. the different theoretical approaches to social and community entrepreneurship
  5. the skills and resource requirements which enable the development and growth of social and community ventures.
  6. the concept of social entrepreneurship applied to developing and developed context
  7. what contributions that governments might make to the growth and sustainability of social and community entrepreneurs

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course students will:

  1. Understand what social and community entrepreneurship is and the reasons for its growth.
  2. Be able to distinguish between concepts, practices and processes of social and community entrepreneurship.
  3. Understand how the key entrepreneurial concepts of opportunity identification, evaluation and exploitation are used within a social and community context.
  4. Understand the challenges that social and community enterprises face in achieving sustainability, and specifically  how certain resources, for example, social capital, can either facilitate or constrain the development of social and community entrepreneurship.

Learning and teaching methods

Lectures: 2hrs x 10 weeks

Please refer to MyCampus for timetable.

Course Texts

Bridge, S.,Murtagh, B.,and O’Neill, K. 92009)  Understanding the Social Economy and the Third Sector. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire.

Deform, JH,  Haggard, L and Pest off, V (ends) (2014) Social Enterprise and the Third Economy, Routledge

Denny, S and Sedona, F (ends) (2013) Social Enterprise: accountability and evaluation around the globe, Routledge

Fairbairn, B and Russell, N (eds) (2014) Co-operative Canada: empowering communities and sustainable businesses, UBC Press

Huybrechts, B (2012) Fair Trade Organisations and Social Enterprise: social innovation through hybrid organisational models, Routledge

Kickul, J and Lyons, T (2012) Understanding Social Enterprise: the relentless pursuit of mission in an ever-changing word, Routledge

London,, M and Morfopolous, R G (2009) Social Entrepreneurship: how to start successful corporate social responsibility and community based initiatives for advocacy and change, Routledge

Macleod, G (1997) From Mondragon to America: experiments in community economic development, Cape Breton University Press.

Macleod, G (2010) How to Start A Community Enterprise: A Personal Approach, Tompkins Institute, Cape Breton University

Martin, F and Thompson, M (2010) Social Enterprise: developing sustainable businesses, Palgrave Macmillan

Merrett, C D and Walzer, N (eds) (2014) Co-operatives and Local Development. ME Sharpe Inc.

Mook, L, Quarter, J and Ryan, S (eds) (2012) Business With a Difference: balancing the social and the economic, University of Toronto Press.

Mulgan, G., Tucker, S., Ali, R. & Sanders, B. 2007. Social Innovation: what it is, why it matters, how it can be accelerated. Oxford: Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.

Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J. & Mulgan, G. 2010. The Open Book of Social Innovation.

Norkovic, S and Webb, T (eds) (2014) Co-operatives in a post-growth era: creating co-operative economies, Zed Books.

Nyssens, M. (2006). Social Enterprise. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon.

Nicholls, A. (2006). Social entrepreneurship: New Business Models of Sustainable Social Change, Oxford: OUP.

Quarter, J, Mook, L and Armstrong, A (eds) (2009) Understanding the Social Economy: a Canadian Perspective, University of Toronto Press

Steyaert, C. and Hjorth, D. (2006) Entrepreneurship as social change a third movements in entrepreneurship book. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar in association with ESBRI

Assessment

3 Individual Assignments (2500 words), Equal Weighting.