Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurism - Coursework Example

DISCUSSION QUESTION 1 Corporate social responsibility is to take steps towards the well being of a company’s stakeholders, namely, its clients, environment, employees and the community in which the company operates. Organizations that are able to serve its stakeholders on the social level, coming out of their profit making objectives, are able to achieve more reputation and goodwill in the market. Some economists argue that corporate social responsibility is mere a window dressing phenomenon and distracts the organizations from their main mission and objectives, while some socialists argue that since corporations are able to make earnings from their stakeholders, they should give back something to the community as well. Social entrepreneurism is defined as the ability to reinvent the solution to an existing social problem. Operating a social organization cannot be called social entrepreneurism simply because it is necessary for the solution to a social problem to be reinvented and not merely modified as entrepreneurship is the ability to discover a new way of solving an old problem. Moreover, in private organizations, entrepreneurs are focused on the solution to the problem but want to also provide monetary benefits to the stakeholders involved in their invention which differs from social entrepreneurs who only invent new processes for the social benefit which is more suited to that of non-profit organizations. One of the ways to bridge the gap between the non – profit organizations and private sector businesses is to develop corporate social responsibility in private sector organizations which will bring the private organizations towards the social welfare of the community and so they will be more connected with the non=profit organizations. DISCUSSION QUESTION 2 In order to pursue an innovative idea forward, one needs to counter the purpose of the initiative and to develop a model which takes that idea from abstraction towards a more logical and rational direction. Strategic planning is to give that same direction to an organization or an entrepreneur, along with helping to clear up the vision and answer the basic type of questions such as what has to be done, for whom and how to excel in it. Strategic planning is directly related to social entrepreneurship, as a pioneering scheme is incapable of achieving its expected benefits without having a clear direction which can only be achieved through strategic planning. Strategic planning can tend to ignore innovation as it tends to follow the rational thinking. The whole process of strategic planning starts with logical aspects of a decision and ends at the feasibility of it. However, still strategic planning cannot be ignored by an entrepreneur when following an innovative idea, as along with innovation, the viability of the idea is also very important. In the debate of SWOT vs. SOAR, I think both of them are equally important. SWOT incorporates strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats, all of these are important when analyzing the external and internal environment of an organization. SWOT also enables an organization to interpret its current standing. On the other hand, SOAR, incorporates strengths, opportunities, aspirations and results, and makes an organization able to plan its desired achievements and anticipate the potential results. This shows that both the tools are equally significant, highlighting different prospects of an organization. DISCUSSION QUESTION 3 Effective leadership is very necessary for social entrepreneurship; as such leaders need to intimidate people to follow them. Effective leaders make people come along with them through always motivating them and believing in them. This makes employees able to share their fears with such a leader and work increasingly harder. Another quality of an effective leader is to keep people grouped together in a team and make them enthusiastic about their achievements. Partnerships and collaborations are needed to grow an organization and fuel its path towards it mission. It is very important to effectively manage these partnerships and collaborations as they can fail if needed attention is not given to them. The company collaborating with another company need not necessarily have the same style of leadership and corporate culture and so after the collaboration, some issues might arise within the management and the workers coming together from two different organizations. Therefore, it is important to divest prior interest towards bridging the gap between two organizations through the use of effective leadership. In social entrepreneurship, the role of effective leadership is even more important, as people have to be motivated to work towards a direction with no monetary benefits and so in such conditions an effective leader is able to keep its team together and motivated to work towards his/her mission to do social good. DISCUSSION QUESTION 4 Consumer theory deals with the choices a consumer makes when deciding to purchase goods and/or services depending upon his/her desires and the budget constraint. Consumer theory in return builds up the consumer society which emphasizes the consumption process within a civilization. Consumer society is based on increasing consumption which is dictated by the free choice of consumers. A social entrepreneur tends to bring a balance between the needs and wants of consumers, and this balance subsequently increases consumption.. Therefore, a social entrepreneur tends to directly impact consumer society through increasing consumption. A marketing mix is a tool for assessing the offerings of a product, considering the four basic elements known as the four P’s of marketing, namely, Product, Price, Place and Promotion which have now been extended to seven or eight P’s depending upon the nature of the product industry. The marketing mix is used to evaluate product at the most important elements of its being, starting from the product itself which is seen as the item which is developed to satisfy customers’ needs and wants. Going on to the next element, Price dictates the charges a customer pays for the usage of the product. Promotion being the third in the row educates people about the products and spreads customer awareness, and lastly, place is where the product is sold to the consumers. Financial accounting deals with the making of reports which hold consolidated information regarding the firm’s financial performance. This assessment of financial information makes a firm more presentable in front of potential investors and in front of probable collaborators and/or partners. It’s not necessary for only a profit making organization to incorporate financial accounting; a social enterprise should also keep recording its information to make itself more feasible for donations and other collaborations. DISCUSSION QUESTION 5 More and more organizations are moving towards ethical compliance, as it not only strengthens the organization from inside but also makes it achieve goodwill in its external environment as well. The pressure of maintaining high ethical standards has made more people specialize in this field as a demand has been created for such employees in the market. Ethical compliance is to set ethical standards above all rules and work processes of an organization and to constantly maintain and improve the set ethical standards. As there is an increase in the principled awareness of companies, employees are getting to work in much safer and healthier environments and also products and services delivered to consumers are as promised so as to reach higher ethical principles. It is a good change but it is hindering social entrepreneurship. With more people rising up as ethical compliance agents, there is little room left for a visionary to identify a social problem and find an innovative way to resolve it, making social entrepreneurship take a back seat. The incremental increase in ethical standards, world over, has led to more organizations engaging in social causes in order to prove themselves better than their competitors, making ethical compliance a constant battle. Engaging in social causes will earn organizations added respect and raise their principled image in front of consumers, subsequently, increasing sales. Read More