Social Enterprise Potential for Sustainability in the UK

Social Enterprise Potential for Sustainability in the UK Social enterprise is an active and sustainable business form of choice which is able to bring economic, communal and environmental benefits to the UK. It operates across all sectors of the economy, serving individuals in the private, public and third sectors. Through out this research will identify the increase levels of understanding of the role and value of Social Enterprise, given that a lack of understanding of the role and value of social enterprises was cited as a major barrier to the acceleration of the use of the business model. The purpose of this research will identify the key barriers faced by Social Enterprise and explore how these barriers could potentially be overcome to achieve sustainability. Chapter 1: Introduction A brief overview of social enterprise is introduced in the first chapter. Then, the purpose of the study will be next discussed which will end with a specific research question. In the end of this chapter the contribution of this research is also presented. A Brief Overview of Social Enterprise Social enterprise is a business structure that aims to distribute across a range of economic, social and environmental outputs which refer as‘ Triple bottom line. Within this business structure, anyone can develop a business and considers social and environmental impact as central part objectives. It can bring wealth as well as empowerment to disadvantaged communities which may be otherwise suffering exclusion. Social enterprises are organisations that supply goods and services to communal economy sector. These comprise a collection of organisations that subsist between the traditionally private and public sectors and have a stronger association with the community and non-profit sector. This sector has a key function to take part in achieving many of its goals, including overcoming social injustice and exclusion. Fundamental ethos are most often used by social enterprise organisations themselves, emphasises following three general features: †¢ Enterprise oriented like any other business, social enterprise is capable of generating income from production of goods and services to a market. As far as viable trading concerns, they are also able to make surplus from their trading. †¢ Social aims they are driven forward by unambiguous social aims. They are capable of creating new employment opportunity, training skills development and provision of local public services. They are responsible to their members and the larger society to increase its effectiveness and financial sustainability with the ultimate goal of creating social, environmental and economic impact or change. †¢ Social ownership they are self-governing organisations with an authority and the ownership structures are based on participation by stakeholder groups for example users or clients and local community groups and by trustees. Profits or surplus are disseminated as profit sharing to stakeholders or are used for the benefit of the community. In the United Kingdom, social enterprises are gradually becoming a well-known sector of the local and national economy. The organisation which is operating in this sector is conscious about the most important factor that becoming sustainable businesses is the path to independence both financially and in mission. However, this emerging sector is struggling for further growth and eventually it leads to have impact negatively on their sustainability. Social Enterprise should be supported and encouraged to grow both as a sector and as individual organisations so that these will become more sustainable organisations. Purpose of the Study My paper has been developed to explore how the term social enterprise has acquired meaning in the United Kingdom and to demonstrate how practitioners, policymakers and academics influence each other in the development of new sustainable ideas, given that a lack of understanding of the role and significance of social enterprises was cited as a major barrier to the acceleration of the use of this business model. These challenges come in many forms. Some are the same as those affecting any other business including access to business support and finance, a lack of affordable premises and finding skilled staff. However, social enterprises also face one huge barrier that seriously affects their ability to assume a position within the market. That barrier is a lack of understanding of how social enterprises work and of their potential value. This lack of understanding exists across the public, private and voluntary and community sectors. Often its been very difficult to secure contract and mainstream funding support as there are plenty of confusion surrounding the social enterprise business model. So my dissertation will identify the key barriers faced by Social Enterprise and explore how these barriers could potentially be overcome in order to achieve sustainability. It examines critical incidents that have shaped the meaning of social enterprise in England and reflects on these incidents to draw conclusions about the future sustainable development of social enterprise practice. Through out this paper, I will also study the possible circumstances for the sustainable development of social enterprise. The purpose is to notify both policy-making and the wider argument about social enterprise: what its potential might be and how that potential can be realised in different settings. Structure of the Report: This research is divided into six chapters; the first chapter is an introduction with purpose of the study. In the second chapter, literature based review of definitions of social enterprise, roots of social enterprise, discussion relevant to the sustainability of social enterprise, the nature of their contribution and their sponsors and sources of funding. The third summarises the background information of social enterprise in the UK and the fourth and fifth chapter contain the methodology and the summary of the main findings of the study with implications for policy. Finally, the sixth chapter is giving the idea about possible areas that further research could be conducted with the limitations of the study of this research paper. Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter will give an overview of literature and models that are related to the research problem presented in the previous chapter. This chapter will introduce the roots and concepts of social enterprise in order to give a clear idea about the research area. 2.1 Roots of social enterprise Scott specified (2006, p.50) mentioned â€Å"The roots of social enterprises and community enterprise overall can be found in the mutual, self help and co-operative sector which goes back, in the UK, at least to the Fenwick Weavers in Ayrshire 1769 and Dr William King of Brighton in the 1820s with earlier antecedents.† Local community based organisation played vital role within the development of this movement and empowering disadvantaged poor community to move forward labour market. Grass root social worker Harry Cowley campaigned between first and second world war for housing needs and employment opportunity for returning service people and capacity building support for small business. He also advocated â€Å"job creation† programme from the local public service authority for unemployed people and eventually had some success. 2.2 General Discussion on Social Enterprise Social Enterprises combine the requirement of successful businesses with communal aims. They seek to qualify as businesses by setting up a market share and making a profit and draw attention to the long-term benefits for employees, consumers and the community. Todays competitive business world stated that defining the social enterprise is a challenging task. According to OECD (1999, p.9) â€Å"there is no universal, commonly accepted definition of social enterprise.† On the other hand, the OECD (1999, p.10) has described social enterprise as: â€Å"any private activity conducted in the public interest, organised with an entrepreneurial strategy but whose main purpose is not the maximisation of profit but the accomplishment of certain economic and social goals, and which has a capacity of bringing innovative solutions to the problems of social exclusion and unemployment†. Doherty and Thompson (2006, p.362) mentioned in their article that social enterprises are organizations which are seeking business solutions to social crisis. These are needed to be distinguished from other socially-oriented organizations. These also need to take initiatives that can promote to communities but which are not seeking to be â€Å"businesses†. In this esteem, these latter organizations remain dependent on endowments and donations rather than build up true paying customers. According to DTI report A Progress Report on Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success (2003, p.6), social enterprise is such kind of business which reinvests its surpluses in the business or in the community rather than increases profit for shareholders or owners. Drucker (Gendron, 1996, p.37) argued that social entrepreneurs are those who altered the performance capacity of society but Henton et al. (1997, p.1) mentioned that ‘civic entrepreneurs are a new generation of leaders who built new, powerfully productive connections at the intersection of education, business, community and government. Somers (2005, p.46) stated â€Å"Social enterprise emphasise creating social and environmental value at all stages of their production process, as an intrinsic part of their identity†. Following Figure: 1 describes the production process of social enterprise. Laville and Nyssens (2001, p.325) argue that when the roots of social enterprises are based in reciprocity and in this way these are part of the third system, their force is based in their ability to valve into all three economic principles and systems. They are different from private and public enterprise. In terms of private enterprise they do not only maximize profit to benefit owners, they also develop market activities and generate profits. With the comparison to public enterprise, they are independent from direct control by public authorities but they benefit to a greater or lesser extent from public subsidy. In this way, they mobilize market relations to sell services or goods and use redistributive relations by utilizing government funding to finance their services. Their long-term sustainability depends on their ability to ‘continuously hybridise the three poles of the economy so as to serve the project. 2.3 Discussion Relevant to the Sustainability of Social Enterprise According to Asefa (2005, p.1), â€Å"Sustainable development is the concept of a relationship between economic growth and the environment. The term was first used in 1987 by the world Commission on Environment and Development .Although the term has been around for almost two decades, different interpretation have kept it from being a useful guide for development policy†. Bornstein (2004, p.3) mentioned that over the last decade there has been unprecedented growth of social enterprise world wide. This business model has been getting attention from both government and corporate sector though sustainability remains the major concern. According to 2004 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, a survey was conducted of social entrepreneurship activity in the UK. These data suggested that latest ‘social activates are emerging at a faster rate than more conventional, commercial endeavours. Within local and global level there are three areas to focus on sustainability in business activity and they are environment, economy and community. (Harding and Cowling, 2004, p.5) Environment It ensures that business is engaged in the appropriate and careful use of limited supplies and the management of waste so that it will be able to minimize the negative and maximize the positive impact of human activity. Economy It ensures that business is financially viable and it engages in good employment practice. Finally it is beneficial to the whole economy. Social It ensures that business is overall of advantage to communities, their customs and does not cause danger to them. Schulyer (1998, p.3) described that social entrepreneurs are those who have a powerful visualization for social change and who have the strong financial resources to support their ideas. That means they should reveal all the abilities of conquering business people and a compelling aspiration for social change. On the other hand, Catford (1998, p.96) argued that â€Å"social entrepreneurswill only flourish if they are supported by the right environment, which will be created largely by governments together with the private sector†. 2.3.1Financial Sustainability Social Enterprise looks for surplus generation in order to achieve financial sustainability. This is a fundamental need to social enterprises. Emphasizing financial sustainability in addition to profit distribution becomes a way to account for all activities the organization engages in, including advocacy and in support of bono work. Sacrificing one cause and effect chain for another can have significant implications for both the quality of work and social enterprises financial sustainability. Whilst many may rely on combination of grant and trading income, ultimately, if an organisation is not financially sustainable, it cannot deliver its social and environmental impact. Fig3. Shows how the profit of social organisation is distributed to the organization itself and community. 2.4 Policy Reform and Good Governance DTI report A Progress Report on Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success (2003, p.6) describes the three key goals for government: creating an enabling environment, making social enterprises better businesses and establishing the value of social enterprise. Thompson et al. (2000, p.328) describe â€Å"people who realize where there is an opportunity to satisfy some unmet need that the state welfare system will not or cannot meet, and who gather together the necessary resources (generally people, often volunteers, money and premises) and use these to ‘make a difference†. Brown and Murphy (2003, p.57) mentioned on Bank of England report that â€Å"Social enterprises, like all businesses, need access to a range of financial products appropriate to their activity and stage of development†. A HM Treasury report on Enterpriseand Social Exclusion (1999, p.108) came to the conclusion, arguing that social enterprise was â€Å"less understood and rarely promoted in a consistent way by the existing infrastructure for business support†. It is more constructive to judge and expand social enterprise capabilities rather than expertises and capacity building. The fact that social enterprises need to combine commercial objectives with social mission as well as internal governance means that a â€Å"capabilities approach† is more comprehensive. This is a useful way of recognising factors additional to individual skills that inter-play to determine the effectiveness and impact of a specific enterprise. It also moves away from limited considerations of a key person or group within the organisation, and their specific skills, towards a more holistic view of what the organisation is capable of doing, irrespective of the location of particular skills. Catford (1998, p.97) articulated the problems and gave one probable way out: â€Å"Traditional welfare-state approaches are in decline globally, and in response new ways of creating healthy and sustainable communities are required. This challenges our social, economic and political systems to respond with new, creative and effective environments that support and reward change. From the evidence available, current examples of social entrepreneurship offer exciting new ways of realizing the potential of individuals and communitiesinto the 21st century†. Academic writing about modern social entrepreneurship skills is relatively limited, compared to mainstream business or charities. The concept of ‘social enterprise has been quickly appearing in the public, private and non-profit sectors over the last few years. Todays increased competitive not for profit sector there is extensive needs for the improvement of organisation effectiveness and sustainability even though securing funding is harder to meet the criteria of funding body. There is a good opportunity to tap in to corporate social responsibility programme by utilising better communication and marketing strategy in order to tackle complex social problems. Chapter 3: Background Information of Social Enterprise This chapter will give the idea about the social enterprise in the UK along with the impact, barriers and access to finance. Social Enterprise in the UK The UK government has been at the front position of enabling and encouraging the increase of social enterprises as part of both welfare services delivery and community regeneration at the policy level. The impacts and influence of public, private, and citizen are empirically proven and exhibit that these conventional sectors of society are playing a part in re-evaluating the value creation opportunities offered by market (or quasi-market) mechanisms. DTI research suggested that there are at least 55,000 social enterprises in the UK, and combined turnover of  £27billion per year. These social enterprises account for 5% of all businesses with employees and the contribution to GDP is approximately  £8.4 billion, around 0.7% of the total economy. Cabinet Office mentioned on their website that in the year 2004-2005, the charity sector in the UK had a overall income of about  £27.6 billion which was raised over  £800 million from the previous year. It stand for about 2% of the UKs GDP. The data obtained from the Cabinet Office website in social sector showed that, 67% of them expected activity to grow in the next three years compare to 56% in the year 2003-2004 of third sector organisations reported an increase in activity in the previous year. Positive aspects of Social Enterprise: Social enterprise is a diverse activity and can contain a range of organisations working on different extents and at different stages of trading. They can work in commercial markets or in public services. Some work nationally, while others work at community level. They often work in the most deprived areas and work with the most underprivileged groups. Some organisations work only as a social enterprise while in other organisations social enterprise is often a part of their activity. It works in a number of key priority areas for the UK economy- these include: employment and training adult care services childcare and health transport financial enclosure recycling rural enhancement renewable energy and community regeneration According to Doherty and Thompson (2006, p.362) the common characteristics for a Social Enterprise are: They have a social rationale and yields and surpluses are not shared out to shareholders. Reinvested income can be utilized to provide training and improvement opportunities for workers. They use assets and capital to generate community benefit. It gives assurance that resources provide value for money where a public-sector agreement is essential for the activity. Members or employees can also take part in decision making. The SE model could make new structures of entrepreneurship and employment within a society. The enterprise is responsible to both its members and a wider community. Social enterprise can propose goods and services to its consumers in an elastic and inventive way. Often the market has failed or the private sector does not want to go in this area. The potential of earnings and returns stream could unleash organisations from the oppression of fundraising and grant applications. There is either a double or triple-bottom line concept. The assumption is that the most effective social enterprises show signs of healthy financial and social returns rather than high profits in one and lower profits in the other. Social Enterprise adopted enterprising solutions to deal with social and environmental issues following evidence of the beneficiaries of social enterprise activity is shown in Figure.3 (IFF, 2005). According to IFF (2005, p.28), a survey of social enterprises was conducted in 2004 for the Small Business Service (SBS), the UK Government, is showed on the following figure.4. It shows 19% beneficiaries were people with disabilities; 17% were children and young people; 15% were elderly; 12 % were people on low incomes and the unemployed. Social enterprise has been playing vital role to tackle these targeted disadvantaged group and moving forward them in the labour market, predominantly in poor areas with soaring levels of poverty and joblessness. Barriers of social enterprise According to UK Government, there are mainly four significant barriers to accessing appropriate business support and finance for social enterprises throughout the region. 1. Cultural barriers between those setting up social enterprises and mainstream business advisors. 2. Lack of transparency about where to access business support at the local level, largely due to the huge diversity of routes into starting up social enterprises. 3. Limited numbers of qualified technical specialists in key business advice areas where social enterprises require specialist support, for example on legal structure, potential investors or taxation. 4. Limited sources of affordable equity and loan finance of all sizes. Bank of England (2003, p.25), took the survey of Social enterprise and it stated that 32% of social enterprises mentioned the problems in obtaining external finance and 25% problems in getting grants as major barriers to expanding their trading activities. However, other problems are lack of qualified staff (14%); lack of appropriate premises (16%); and lack of cash flow (10%) Low (2006, p.381) cited in his journal according to the source of DTI â€Å"†¦often have boards of directors or trustees who come from a voluntary sector rather than a business background. This can lead to a lack of business focus and prevent social enterprise from truly reaching their potential† The Progress Report on Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success(2003, p.68) concluded that there is little hard substantiation to show the impact and added value of social enterprise. According to the report, the main reason is that social enterprises generate a variety of social and environmental impacts, beyond their financial return that are difficult to measure. Policy makers, business support providers and finance providers find it difficult to assess the value of targeting social enterprises or of including them in their activities due to lack of information on their social and environmental, as well as financial impact. Access to Finance The key factor in an enterprises development is access to appropriate sources of finance. Social enterprises have been rejected more for finance compared to the SMEs. In addition, a large minority of social enterprises perceive access to external finance as a major barrier to expansion, including some of those that have successfully accessed finance in the past. There is no clear reason to account for the higher rejection rates among social enterprises but possible contributory factors are: lack of obtainable security and private financial stake; use of organisational structures and grant funding streams with which lenders may be unfamiliar, and which may result in lengthy arrangement times; low levels of investment readiness among some social enterprises depends on some elements of credit and behavioural scoring and reputational risk to the lender. For example creating â€Å"venture philanthropy† organisation will ensure long term financing of charities infrastructure, proact ive management support and capacity building support. Dees (2004, p.18) mentioned that â€Å"Businesses fail all the time and many donor-dependent nonprofits have been around for many decades, even centuries. Social entrepreneurs look for the strategy, structure, and funding mechanisms that are most likely to ensure effective and efficient social performance given specific mission objectives and a particular operating environment†. Chapter 4: Methodology This chapter will present detailed idea about the research were conducted. This includes the research design, sample selection methods and data collection methods. At the end of this methodology part validity and reliability issues will be discussed to follow the quality standards of the research. 4.1 Research Design The present study endeavoured to explore the sustainability of social enterprise for the development of the UK. Exploratory research is selected as research design as little information exists about the social enterprise of the UK. The aim of exploratory research is mainly to gain enough information before doing more thorough research. Cooper Schindler (2003, p.21) mentioned that we basically start by gathering as much information about the object as possible and with a vague impression of what we should study. Exploratory studies are a valuable means of finding out what is happening, to seek new insight, to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light. It is particularly useful if researcher wish to clarify the understanding of a problem. According to Saunders et.al. (2003, p.360), there are three principle ways of conducting exploratory research and these are: a search of the literature, talking to experts in the subject, conducting focus group interviews. Qualitative interviews would be best in achieving and addressing the questions that I am looking forward to address in this dissertation paper. The research requires data that is both rich and varied as I am keen to extract the opinions and insight about practices, insights and expectations of leaders and beneficiaries in the social sector. Adopting this methodology, I will extract this data without limiting the responses of the respondents; I am mostly interested in their innate insights, opinions and organisational beliefs. Anastas (1988, p.19) mentioned that when there are the cases of sensitive subject issue and difficult decision-making procedures, individual in-depth interviews give a far more valuable tool and create a situation where participants would be likely to speak more explicitly and freely. According to Sokolow (1985, p.28) , there are several other advantages of one-to-one in-depth interviewing which include the support of individual thought, respondent thoughtfulness to questions and the offering the capability of the interviewer to sense non-verbal opinion. 4.2 Sampling Cooper and Schindler, (2003, p.44) stated in their book that selecting some of the elements in a population is the fundamental idea of sampling and researcher may draw conclusions about the entire population. There are a number of convincing reasons for sampling, including: lower cost, greater correctness of result, greater speed of data collection and accessibility of population selection. The sample would be randomly selected nationally from Social Enterprise and are actively fund raising. It is easier to make some comparison and a fairer analysis of the data because the similar size of organizations most likely to follow related trends and they are also affected by the same factors. Due to the complexity of the sector, the samples would be drawn from the wider UK region; this is to widen the organisation from which to select the qualifying sample. 4.3 Data Collection The major form of data collection was based on the semi-structured interview process with senior managers, policy officer and research development officer of the 7 selected Social enterprises operating in the UK. The interviews were designed to gain an understanding of Social Enterprises potential sustainability issues and further research needed to achieve sustainability. Therefore, interview procedures needed semi-structured interview process which is relatively informal; relaxed discussion based around a predetermined topic. Whilst conducting a semi-structured interview first of all I provided the background information regards to the research programme and its objectives to the interviewee. My interviews questions are based on open question where the interviewees had the opportunity to express opinions through its discussion. To keep momentum of discussion with the interview it is important to prepare easy to understand approach when building question with a logical sequence. In terview questions were tested among prior to interviews. Semi-structured interview was highlighted by Leech (2002, p.665) as â€Å"†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦one that can provide detail, depth and insiders perspective, while at the same time allowing hypothesis testing and the quantitative analysis of interview responses†. For collecting secondary data participant social Enterprises annual report, various books, websites, newspapers, annual reports, monthly reviews and significant articles were chosen. Also for collection of primary data in-depth interviews with a range of designated professional, related to this field, were taken. I contacted with Business Links and DTI to obtain the list of social enterprise operating in the UK. 4.3.1. Validity Saunders et. al. (2003, p. 109) emphasised validity is concerned with whether the findings are really about what they appear to be about. Validity defined as the extent to which data collection method or methods accurately measure what they were intended to measure. Cooper Schindler (2003, p.71) believe that validity refers to the extent to which a test measures what we actually wish to measure. There are two major forms: external and internal validity. The external validity of research findings refers to the datas ability to be generalized across persons, settings, and times. Internal validity is the ability of a research instrument to measure what is purposed to measure. To ensure the validity of the study numbers of different steps were taken: †¢Data was collected from the reliable sources, from respondents who are more experienced senior management position within Social Enterprise; †¢Survey question were made based on literature review and frame of reference to ensure the validity of the result; †¢Questionnaire has been pre-tested by the responded before starting the survey. Questionnaire was tested by at least ten persons; †¢Data has been collected through four weeks, within this short period of time no major event has been changed with the related topic. 4.3.2 Reliability: To ensure the reliability of the study numbers of different steps were taken: In order that responders could concentrate more on each question questionnaire was divided into three parts; The Ground Theory that has been selected for the study was clearly described and research question has been formulated based on the previous theory. Data has been collected based on the frame of reference that was drawn from the discussed theories. The objective is to make sure t Social Enterprise Potential for Sustainability in the UK Social Enterprise Potential for Sustainability in the UK Social enterprise is an active and sustainable business form of choice which is able to bring economic, communal and environmental benefits to the UK. It operates across all sectors of the economy, serving individuals in the private, public and third sectors. Through out this research will identify the increase levels of understanding of the role and value of Social Enterprise, given that a lack of understanding of the role and value of social enterprises was cited as a major barrier to the acceleration of the use of the business model. The purpose of this research will identify the key barriers faced by Social Enterprise and explore how these barriers could potentially be overcome to achieve sustainability. Chapter 1: Introduction A brief overview of social enterprise is introduced in the first chapter. Then, the purpose of the study will be next discussed which will end with a specific research question. In the end of this chapter the contribution of this research is also presented. A Brief Overview of Social Enterprise Social enterprise is a business structure that aims to distribute across a range of economic, social and environmental outputs which refer as‘ Triple bottom line. Within this business structure, anyone can develop a business and considers social and environmental impact as central part objectives. It can bring wealth as well as empowerment to disadvantaged communities which may be otherwise suffering exclusion. Social enterprises are organisations that supply goods and services to communal economy sector. These comprise a collection of organisations that subsist between the traditionally private and public sectors and have a stronger association with the community and non-profit sector. This sector has a key function to take part in achieving many of its goals, including overcoming social injustice and exclusion. Fundamental ethos are most often used by social enterprise organisations themselves, emphasises following three general features: †¢ Enterprise oriented like any other business, social enterprise is capable of generating income from production of goods and services to a market. As far as viable trading concerns, they are also able to make surplus from their trading. †¢ Social aims they are driven forward by unambiguous social aims. They are capable of creating new employment opportunity, training skills development and provision of local public services. They are responsible to their members and the larger society to increase its effectiveness and financial sustainability with the ultimate goal of creating social, environmental and economic impact or change. †¢ Social ownership they are self-governing organisations with an authority and the ownership structures are based on participation by stakeholder groups for example users or clients and local community groups and by trustees. Profits or surplus are disseminated as profit sharing to stakeholders or are used for the benefit of the community. In the United Kingdom, social enterprises are gradually becoming a well-known sector of the local and national economy. The organisation which is operating in this sector is conscious about the most important factor that becoming sustainable businesses is the path to independence both financially and in mission. However, this emerging sector is struggling for further growth and eventually it leads to have impact negatively on their sustainability. Social Enterprise should be supported and encouraged to grow both as a sector and as individual organisations so that these will become more sustainable organisations. Purpose of the Study My paper has been developed to explore how the term social enterprise has acquired meaning in the United Kingdom and to demonstrate how practitioners, policymakers and academics influence each other in the development of new sustainable ideas, given that a lack of understanding of the role and significance of social enterprises was cited as a major barrier to the acceleration of the use of this business model. These challenges come in many forms. Some are the same as those affecting any other business including access to business support and finance, a lack of affordable premises and finding skilled staff. However, social enterprises also face one huge barrier that seriously affects their ability to assume a position within the market. That barrier is a lack of understanding of how social enterprises work and of their potential value. This lack of understanding exists across the public, private and voluntary and community sectors. Often its been very difficult to secure contract and mainstream funding support as there are plenty of confusion surrounding the social enterprise business model. So my dissertation will identify the key barriers faced by Social Enterprise and explore how these barriers could potentially be overcome in order to achieve sustainability. It examines critical incidents that have shaped the meaning of social enterprise in England and reflects on these incidents to draw conclusions about the future sustainable development of social enterprise practice. Through out this paper, I will also study the possible circumstances for the sustainable development of social enterprise. The purpose is to notify both policy-making and the wider argument about social enterprise: what its potential might be and how that potential can be realised in different settings. Structure of the Report: This research is divided into six chapters; the first chapter is an introduction with purpose of the study. In the second chapter, literature based review of definitions of social enterprise, roots of social enterprise, discussion relevant to the sustainability of social enterprise, the nature of their contribution and their sponsors and sources of funding. The third summarises the background information of social enterprise in the UK and the fourth and fifth chapter contain the methodology and the summary of the main findings of the study with implications for policy. Finally, the sixth chapter is giving the idea about possible areas that further research could be conducted with the limitations of the study of this research paper. Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter will give an overview of literature and models that are related to the research problem presented in the previous chapter. This chapter will introduce the roots and concepts of social enterprise in order to give a clear idea about the research area. 2.1 Roots of social enterprise Scott specified (2006, p.50) mentioned â€Å"The roots of social enterprises and community enterprise overall can be found in the mutual, self help and co-operative sector which goes back, in the UK, at least to the Fenwick Weavers in Ayrshire 1769 and Dr William King of Brighton in the 1820s with earlier antecedents.† Local community based organisation played vital role within the development of this movement and empowering disadvantaged poor community to move forward labour market. Grass root social worker Harry Cowley campaigned between first and second world war for housing needs and employment opportunity for returning service people and capacity building support for small business. He also advocated â€Å"job creation† programme from the local public service authority for unemployed people and eventually had some success. 2.2 General Discussion on Social Enterprise Social Enterprises combine the requirement of successful businesses with communal aims. They seek to qualify as businesses by setting up a market share and making a profit and draw attention to the long-term benefits for employees, consumers and the community. Todays competitive business world stated that defining the social enterprise is a challenging task. According to OECD (1999, p.9) â€Å"there is no universal, commonly accepted definition of social enterprise.† On the other hand, the OECD (1999, p.10) has described social enterprise as: â€Å"any private activity conducted in the public interest, organised with an entrepreneurial strategy but whose main purpose is not the maximisation of profit but the accomplishment of certain economic and social goals, and which has a capacity of bringing innovative solutions to the problems of social exclusion and unemployment†. Doherty and Thompson (2006, p.362) mentioned in their article that social enterprises are organizations which are seeking business solutions to social crisis. These are needed to be distinguished from other socially-oriented organizations. These also need to take initiatives that can promote to communities but which are not seeking to be â€Å"businesses†. In this esteem, these latter organizations remain dependent on endowments and donations rather than build up true paying customers. According to DTI report A Progress Report on Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success (2003, p.6), social enterprise is such kind of business which reinvests its surpluses in the business or in the community rather than increases profit for shareholders or owners. Drucker (Gendron, 1996, p.37) argued that social entrepreneurs are those who altered the performance capacity of society but Henton et al. (1997, p.1) mentioned that ‘civic entrepreneurs are a new generation of leaders who built new, powerfully productive connections at the intersection of education, business, community and government. Somers (2005, p.46) stated â€Å"Social enterprise emphasise creating social and environmental value at all stages of their production process, as an intrinsic part of their identity†. Following Figure: 1 describes the production process of social enterprise. Laville and Nyssens (2001, p.325) argue that when the roots of social enterprises are based in reciprocity and in this way these are part of the third system, their force is based in their ability to valve into all three economic principles and systems. They are different from private and public enterprise. In terms of private enterprise they do not only maximize profit to benefit owners, they also develop market activities and generate profits. With the comparison to public enterprise, they are independent from direct control by public authorities but they benefit to a greater or lesser extent from public subsidy. In this way, they mobilize market relations to sell services or goods and use redistributive relations by utilizing government funding to finance their services. Their long-term sustainability depends on their ability to ‘continuously hybridise the three poles of the economy so as to serve the project. 2.3 Discussion Relevant to the Sustainability of Social Enterprise According to Asefa (2005, p.1), â€Å"Sustainable development is the concept of a relationship between economic growth and the environment. The term was first used in 1987 by the world Commission on Environment and Development .Although the term has been around for almost two decades, different interpretation have kept it from being a useful guide for development policy†. Bornstein (2004, p.3) mentioned that over the last decade there has been unprecedented growth of social enterprise world wide. This business model has been getting attention from both government and corporate sector though sustainability remains the major concern. According to 2004 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, a survey was conducted of social entrepreneurship activity in the UK. These data suggested that latest ‘social activates are emerging at a faster rate than more conventional, commercial endeavours. Within local and global level there are three areas to focus on sustainability in business activity and they are environment, economy and community. (Harding and Cowling, 2004, p.5) Environment It ensures that business is engaged in the appropriate and careful use of limited supplies and the management of waste so that it will be able to minimize the negative and maximize the positive impact of human activity. Economy It ensures that business is financially viable and it engages in good employment practice. Finally it is beneficial to the whole economy. Social It ensures that business is overall of advantage to communities, their customs and does not cause danger to them. Schulyer (1998, p.3) described that social entrepreneurs are those who have a powerful visualization for social change and who have the strong financial resources to support their ideas. That means they should reveal all the abilities of conquering business people and a compelling aspiration for social change. On the other hand, Catford (1998, p.96) argued that â€Å"social entrepreneurswill only flourish if they are supported by the right environment, which will be created largely by governments together with the private sector†. 2.3.1Financial Sustainability Social Enterprise looks for surplus generation in order to achieve financial sustainability. This is a fundamental need to social enterprises. Emphasizing financial sustainability in addition to profit distribution becomes a way to account for all activities the organization engages in, including advocacy and in support of bono work. Sacrificing one cause and effect chain for another can have significant implications for both the quality of work and social enterprises financial sustainability. Whilst many may rely on combination of grant and trading income, ultimately, if an organisation is not financially sustainable, it cannot deliver its social and environmental impact. Fig3. Shows how the profit of social organisation is distributed to the organization itself and community. 2.4 Policy Reform and Good Governance DTI report A Progress Report on Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success (2003, p.6) describes the three key goals for government: creating an enabling environment, making social enterprises better businesses and establishing the value of social enterprise. Thompson et al. (2000, p.328) describe â€Å"people who realize where there is an opportunity to satisfy some unmet need that the state welfare system will not or cannot meet, and who gather together the necessary resources (generally people, often volunteers, money and premises) and use these to ‘make a difference†. Brown and Murphy (2003, p.57) mentioned on Bank of England report that â€Å"Social enterprises, like all businesses, need access to a range of financial products appropriate to their activity and stage of development†. A HM Treasury report on Enterpriseand Social Exclusion (1999, p.108) came to the conclusion, arguing that social enterprise was â€Å"less understood and rarely promoted in a consistent way by the existing infrastructure for business support†. It is more constructive to judge and expand social enterprise capabilities rather than expertises and capacity building. The fact that social enterprises need to combine commercial objectives with social mission as well as internal governance means that a â€Å"capabilities approach† is more comprehensive. This is a useful way of recognising factors additional to individual skills that inter-play to determine the effectiveness and impact of a specific enterprise. It also moves away from limited considerations of a key person or group within the organisation, and their specific skills, towards a more holistic view of what the organisation is capable of doing, irrespective of the location of particular skills. Catford (1998, p.97) articulated the problems and gave one probable way out: â€Å"Traditional welfare-state approaches are in decline globally, and in response new ways of creating healthy and sustainable communities are required. This challenges our social, economic and political systems to respond with new, creative and effective environments that support and reward change. From the evidence available, current examples of social entrepreneurship offer exciting new ways of realizing the potential of individuals and communitiesinto the 21st century†. Academic writing about modern social entrepreneurship skills is relatively limited, compared to mainstream business or charities. The concept of ‘social enterprise has been quickly appearing in the public, private and non-profit sectors over the last few years. Todays increased competitive not for profit sector there is extensive needs for the improvement of organisation effectiveness and sustainability even though securing funding is harder to meet the criteria of funding body. There is a good opportunity to tap in to corporate social responsibility programme by utilising better communication and marketing strategy in order to tackle complex social problems. Chapter 3: Background Information of Social Enterprise This chapter will give the idea about the social enterprise in the UK along with the impact, barriers and access to finance. Social Enterprise in the UK The UK government has been at the front position of enabling and encouraging the increase of social enterprises as part of both welfare services delivery and community regeneration at the policy level. The impacts and influence of public, private, and citizen are empirically proven and exhibit that these conventional sectors of society are playing a part in re-evaluating the value creation opportunities offered by market (or quasi-market) mechanisms. DTI research suggested that there are at least 55,000 social enterprises in the UK, and combined turnover of  £27billion per year. These social enterprises account for 5% of all businesses with employees and the contribution to GDP is approximately  £8.4 billion, around 0.7% of the total economy. Cabinet Office mentioned on their website that in the year 2004-2005, the charity sector in the UK had a overall income of about  £27.6 billion which was raised over  £800 million from the previous year. It stand for about 2% of the UKs GDP. The data obtained from the Cabinet Office website in social sector showed that, 67% of them expected activity to grow in the next three years compare to 56% in the year 2003-2004 of third sector organisations reported an increase in activity in the previous year. Positive aspects of Social Enterprise: Social enterprise is a diverse activity and can contain a range of organisations working on different extents and at different stages of trading. They can work in commercial markets or in public services. Some work nationally, while others work at community level. They often work in the most deprived areas and work with the most underprivileged groups. Some organisations work only as a social enterprise while in other organisations social enterprise is often a part of their activity. It works in a number of key priority areas for the UK economy- these include: employment and training adult care services childcare and health transport financial enclosure recycling rural enhancement renewable energy and community regeneration According to Doherty and Thompson (2006, p.362) the common characteristics for a Social Enterprise are: They have a social rationale and yields and surpluses are not shared out to shareholders. Reinvested income can be utilized to provide training and improvement opportunities for workers. They use assets and capital to generate community benefit. It gives assurance that resources provide value for money where a public-sector agreement is essential for the activity. Members or employees can also take part in decision making. The SE model could make new structures of entrepreneurship and employment within a society. The enterprise is responsible to both its members and a wider community. Social enterprise can propose goods and services to its consumers in an elastic and inventive way. Often the market has failed or the private sector does not want to go in this area. The potential of earnings and returns stream could unleash organisations from the oppression of fundraising and grant applications. There is either a double or triple-bottom line concept. The assumption is that the most effective social enterprises show signs of healthy financial and social returns rather than high profits in one and lower profits in the other. Social Enterprise adopted enterprising solutions to deal with social and environmental issues following evidence of the beneficiaries of social enterprise activity is shown in Figure.3 (IFF, 2005). According to IFF (2005, p.28), a survey of social enterprises was conducted in 2004 for the Small Business Service (SBS), the UK Government, is showed on the following figure.4. It shows 19% beneficiaries were people with disabilities; 17% were children and young people; 15% were elderly; 12 % were people on low incomes and the unemployed. Social enterprise has been playing vital role to tackle these targeted disadvantaged group and moving forward them in the labour market, predominantly in poor areas with soaring levels of poverty and joblessness. Barriers of social enterprise According to UK Government, there are mainly four significant barriers to accessing appropriate business support and finance for social enterprises throughout the region. 1. Cultural barriers between those setting up social enterprises and mainstream business advisors. 2. Lack of transparency about where to access business support at the local level, largely due to the huge diversity of routes into starting up social enterprises. 3. Limited numbers of qualified technical specialists in key business advice areas where social enterprises require specialist support, for example on legal structure, potential investors or taxation. 4. Limited sources of affordable equity and loan finance of all sizes. Bank of England (2003, p.25), took the survey of Social enterprise and it stated that 32% of social enterprises mentioned the problems in obtaining external finance and 25% problems in getting grants as major barriers to expanding their trading activities. However, other problems are lack of qualified staff (14%); lack of appropriate premises (16%); and lack of cash flow (10%) Low (2006, p.381) cited in his journal according to the source of DTI â€Å"†¦often have boards of directors or trustees who come from a voluntary sector rather than a business background. This can lead to a lack of business focus and prevent social enterprise from truly reaching their potential† The Progress Report on Social Enterprise: A Strategy for Success(2003, p.68) concluded that there is little hard substantiation to show the impact and added value of social enterprise. According to the report, the main reason is that social enterprises generate a variety of social and environmental impacts, beyond their financial return that are difficult to measure. Policy makers, business support providers and finance providers find it difficult to assess the value of targeting social enterprises or of including them in their activities due to lack of information on their social and environmental, as well as financial impact. Access to Finance The key factor in an enterprises development is access to appropriate sources of finance. Social enterprises have been rejected more for finance compared to the SMEs. In addition, a large minority of social enterprises perceive access to external finance as a major barrier to expansion, including some of those that have successfully accessed finance in the past. There is no clear reason to account for the higher rejection rates among social enterprises but possible contributory factors are: lack of obtainable security and private financial stake; use of organisational structures and grant funding streams with which lenders may be unfamiliar, and which may result in lengthy arrangement times; low levels of investment readiness among some social enterprises depends on some elements of credit and behavioural scoring and reputational risk to the lender. For example creating â€Å"venture philanthropy† organisation will ensure long term financing of charities infrastructure, proact ive management support and capacity building support. Dees (2004, p.18) mentioned that â€Å"Businesses fail all the time and many donor-dependent nonprofits have been around for many decades, even centuries. Social entrepreneurs look for the strategy, structure, and funding mechanisms that are most likely to ensure effective and efficient social performance given specific mission objectives and a particular operating environment†. Chapter 4: Methodology This chapter will present detailed idea about the research were conducted. This includes the research design, sample selection methods and data collection methods. At the end of this methodology part validity and reliability issues will be discussed to follow the quality standards of the research. 4.1 Research Design The present study endeavoured to explore the sustainability of social enterprise for the development of the UK. Exploratory research is selected as research design as little information exists about the social enterprise of the UK. The aim of exploratory research is mainly to gain enough information before doing more thorough research. Cooper Schindler (2003, p.21) mentioned that we basically start by gathering as much information about the object as possible and with a vague impression of what we should study. Exploratory studies are a valuable means of finding out what is happening, to seek new insight, to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light. It is particularly useful if researcher wish to clarify the understanding of a problem. According to Saunders et.al. (2003, p.360), there are three principle ways of conducting exploratory research and these are: a search of the literature, talking to experts in the subject, conducting focus group interviews. Qualitative interviews would be best in achieving and addressing the questions that I am looking forward to address in this dissertation paper. The research requires data that is both rich and varied as I am keen to extract the opinions and insight about practices, insights and expectations of leaders and beneficiaries in the social sector. Adopting this methodology, I will extract this data without limiting the responses of the respondents; I am mostly interested in their innate insights, opinions and organisational beliefs. Anastas (1988, p.19) mentioned that when there are the cases of sensitive subject issue and difficult decision-making procedures, individual in-depth interviews give a far more valuable tool and create a situation where participants would be likely to speak more explicitly and freely. According to Sokolow (1985, p.28) , there are several other advantages of one-to-one in-depth interviewing which include the support of individual thought, respondent thoughtfulness to questions and the offering the capability of the interviewer to sense non-verbal opinion. 4.2 Sampling Cooper and Schindler, (2003, p.44) stated in their book that selecting some of the elements in a population is the fundamental idea of sampling and researcher may draw conclusions about the entire population. There are a number of convincing reasons for sampling, including: lower cost, greater correctness of result, greater speed of data collection and accessibility of population selection. The sample would be randomly selected nationally from Social Enterprise and are actively fund raising. It is easier to make some comparison and a fairer analysis of the data because the similar size of organizations most likely to follow related trends and they are also affected by the same factors. Due to the complexity of the sector, the samples would be drawn from the wider UK region; this is to widen the organisation from which to select the qualifying sample. 4.3 Data Collection The major form of data collection was based on the semi-structured interview process with senior managers, policy officer and research development officer of the 7 selected Social enterprises operating in the UK. The interviews were designed to gain an understanding of Social Enterprises potential sustainability issues and further research needed to achieve sustainability. Therefore, interview procedures needed semi-structured interview process which is relatively informal; relaxed discussion based around a predetermined topic. Whilst conducting a semi-structured interview first of all I provided the background information regards to the research programme and its objectives to the interviewee. My interviews questions are based on open question where the interviewees had the opportunity to express opinions through its discussion. To keep momentum of discussion with the interview it is important to prepare easy to understand approach when building question with a logical sequence. In terview questions were tested among prior to interviews. Semi-structured interview was highlighted by Leech (2002, p.665) as â€Å"†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦one that can provide detail, depth and insiders perspective, while at the same time allowing hypothesis testing and the quantitative analysis of interview responses†. For collecting secondary data participant social Enterprises annual report, various books, websites, newspapers, annual reports, monthly reviews and significant articles were chosen. Also for collection of primary data in-depth interviews with a range of designated professional, related to this field, were taken. I contacted with Business Links and DTI to obtain the list of social enterprise operating in the UK. 4.3.1. Validity Saunders et. al. (2003, p. 109) emphasised validity is concerned with whether the findings are really about what they appear to be about. Validity defined as the extent to which data collection method or methods accurately measure what they were intended to measure. Cooper Schindler (2003, p.71) believe that validity refers to the extent to which a test measures what we actually wish to measure. There are two major forms: external and internal validity. The external validity of research findings refers to the datas ability to be generalized across persons, settings, and times. Internal validity is the ability of a research instrument to measure what is purposed to measure. To ensure the validity of the study numbers of different steps were taken: †¢Data was collected from the reliable sources, from respondents who are more experienced senior management position within Social Enterprise; †¢Survey question were made based on literature review and frame of reference to ensure the validity of the result; †¢Questionnaire has been pre-tested by the responded before starting the survey. Questionnaire was tested by at least ten persons; †¢Data has been collected through four weeks, within this short period of time no major event has been changed with the related topic. 4.3.2 Reliability: To ensure the reliability of the study numbers of different steps were taken: In order that responders could concentrate more on each question questionnaire was divided into three parts; The Ground Theory that has been selected for the study was clearly described and research question has been formulated based on the previous theory. Data has been collected based on the frame of reference that was drawn from the discussed theories. The objective is to make sure t

Effects of advertising in hospitals

Effects of advertising in hospitals Hospitals are basically perceived to be organisations that provide essential medical services to people from various social segments. They are associated with medical ethics, which traditionally prohibit doctors from advertising their services.  [1]  Whilst hospital advertising is a common feature of modern society, it is perceived favourably only when it attempts to provide important information and not when it plainly engages in attracting clients for commercial purposes.  [2]   Hospital advertising should thus be carefully conducted to ensure that the public feel that such advertising provides needed information and is not meant to entice people to come to the hospital in order to improve its revenues and profits. People in the UAE will appreciate hospitals that provide useful information about their services and other medical issues. 2. Hospital Ads increase Costs Whilst advertising is an essential part of modern day commercial activity, it is mainly perceived to be an expensive tool that is associated with glamour and used to attract new customers by business organisations.  [3]  Whilst hospitals also operate commercially and do need to be profitable to expand their operations and meet stakeholder needs, they are expected to fulfil the medical needs of different social segments and people by and large expect medical services to be provided at economic and affordable rates.  [4]  Extensive advertising by hospitals can thus easily create an impression of such an institution being more interested in commercial benefits than in providing important medical services to people in need. Such advertising should thus be done carefully in order to ensure that wrong or negative perceptions are not created in the minds of the public.  [5]   With the majority of people in the UK being expatriates, they are likely to be tolerant of hospital advertising, even as some of them may feel such advertising to be unnecessary expenditure. 3. I donà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢t trust Hospitals that Advertise Such emotions essentially arise from people who think all medical and associated activities to be service oriented and noble in nature.  [6]  They look down upon medical professionals and institutions that appear to be using their skills and their professional capacities and abilities for personal or organisational financial benefit.  [7]  Whilst healthcare and its associated activities continue to be concerned with the provisioning of services that benefit humans, the altruistic offering of such services is an anachronism in modern neoliberal society.  [8]  Although the majority of healthcare institutions and indeed many of healthcare customers associate medical services with profitable professional or organisational activity, some conservative and traditional individuals think poorly of healthcare associations that are associated, directly or indirectly, with the soliciting of customers. Such people are likely to distrust hospitals that advertise their products and serv ices.  [9]   Whilst the expatriates in the UAE may well adopt a tolerant and even appreciative view of hospital advertising, traditional members of UAEà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s conservative society may react with distrust to hospital advertising. 4. Ads are useful in Choosing Hospitals Much of contemporary hospital advertising is conducted by expert advertising people who understand social sensibilities and perceptions about medical services and take care to ensure that hospital advertising provides important information and messages without appearing to be commercial in nature.  [10]  Hospital advertising often deals with services provided by such institutions in different areas and particularly in their areas of specialisation like maternity care, cardiac health or oncology.  [11]  Such advertising plays an extremely useful role and helps prospective users with useful and relevant information.  [12]   With education and literacy rates increasing steadily in the UAE and the region having a significant proportion of expatriates, information about hospital services will be welcome and is likely to be greatly appreciated. 5. Hospital Ads often exploit peopleà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s anxieties Hospital advertising by and large is informative and encourages people otherwise to engage in timely checkups for diseases like cancer and diabetics as well as to check for hypertension and other conditions associated with cardiac health.  [13]  Exploitation of anxieties is far more associated with the life and medical insurance sectors rather than with hospitals. Very few people in the UAE will be disturbed on account of hospital advertising exploiting their anxieties. 6. Hospital Ads make people aware of health related issues The overwhelming majority of hospital advertising, directly or indirectly, informs people about different health related issues.  [14]  Even direct advertising about the services provided by healthcare organisations is essentially concerned with health and provides information about it and associated issues.  [15]  A large portion of hospital advertising, irrespective of use of media channels, essentially concerns information about health.  [16]  The provisioning of such information is one of the biggest benefits of healthcare and hospital advertising. People in the UAE will surely appreciate such information and use it for their personal medical and health associated benefits. Section 2 Advertising for healthcare in the U.A.E Healthcare is an important activity in the UAE, particularly in the urban concentrations of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The quality of healthcare is also high and is accepted to generally be equal to that available in Western Europe and the USA, except for highly specialised medical and surgical services. With Dubaià ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s population being small and being serviced by numerous medical facilities in the public and private sector, advertising is routine and common, especially so for organisations in the private sector.  [17]   Such advertising is carried out through various media channels like billboards, print advertising, digital signage and flyers.  [18]  Healthcare advertising targets specific market segments and communicates the unique selling points of various institutions in the sector to consumers.  [19]  Apart from advertising through regular channels, healthcare organisations in the UAE make significant use of PR that works towards developing workable and sustainable communication solutions for individual organisations.  [20]   The UAE also has a number of healthcare publications that provide information on different aspects of health and provide a forum for healthcare advertising.  [21]  Many healthcare organisations in the UAE have well developed online presence and informative websites, even though online commerce is not commonly used by these organisations.  [22]   Recent months have witnessed a growing concern in the region about protecting citizens and residents from unethical advertising by healthcare organisations.  [23]  Authorities are clamping down on advertisements that are targeted at vulnerable customers. Guides on advertising have also been released outlining practices that are considered to be unacceptable and could attract sanctions for breach of code.  [24]   Section 3 Exit and Entry Barriers All business sectors are characterised by entry and exit barriers. The barriers to entry represent hurdles or obstacles that prevent or create difficulties for business organisations to enter a particular sector or area of activity.  [25]  Barriers to exit on the other hand comprise of the numerous difficulties that organisations may face in withdrawing from a business sector or in closing down a business.  [26]  The healthcare sector in the UAE is likely to have numerous barriers to entry as well as to exit. Five such potential entry and exit barriers are detailed below. One of the most important barriers to entry to the sector is likely to be the cost of establishing a new healthcare establishment. The UAE is one of the richest areas in the world and is experiencing inflation. The cost of a new healthcare institution is likely to be expensive and beyond the reach of many organisations. Most healthcare institutions require sophisticated and modern equipment. With medical equipment not being manufactured in the Emirates, all such equipment will have to be ordered and purchased from organisations in different countries. With such equipment being manufactured by a range of organisations in the advanced countries, efficient procurement is likely to be a challenging task. New healthcare organisations can also be expected to face difficulties in obtaining specialists for provisioning of healthcare services to customers. The majority of such specialists will have to be attracted from different countries, mainly from the west and from the Indian subcontinent. Apart from scarcity of medical specialists, the UAE also has a shortage of local paramedical staff like physiotherapists and nurses. Arranging for proper individuals to handle these functions can also prove to be a challenging task. Last but not least the issue of arranging for proper housing of healthcare facilities is also likely to be difficult. With the UAE being one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, obtaining appropriate land and buildings for the healthcare facility could be a difficult task. The preceding paragraph lists five barriers to entry for healthcare organisations. Healthcare institutions that wish to close down their operations and exit from the market could also face different types of exit barriers. Some organisations may be popular for the quality of their services and their loyal clientele. Such customers could become very disturbed on hearing the news of closure and make efforts to persuade the organisational management to desist from taking such actions. Healthcare organisations that have taken loans from financial institutions and are in debt may face objections from their financiers in closing down operations. Other healthcare organisations who want to sell their operations could again face difficulties in locating appropriate buyers who are willing to offer suitable prices. The organisational staff of healthcare institutions could resist closure because of the threat to their jobs and livelihood. Finally healthcare organisations might face resistance from governmental and political authorities, who may think that such a closure could affect the lives and wellbeing of people. Section 4 Application of BCG Matrix The BCG matrix is a strategic tool that helps organisations in classifying their business units by virtue of their potential to add to organisational wellbeing and competitive advantage.  [27]   Business units are, with the BCG matrix, segregated into four cells, namely cash cows, stars, dogs and others.  [28]  Cash cows represent businesses that have good market share but low growth potential. Such products are the mainstays of corporations and are likely to be profitable and should thus be maintained. Surgery can be considered to be a member of this category. Stars are products or services that have high growth potential, high market share and need to be supported with reinvestment. An imaging centre can be considered to be a star. Dogs are businesses that are distinguished by low growth potential and market share. Businesses are usually started to be stars but some of them turn out to be unsuccessful and fall into the category of dogs. Such businesses need to be closed as soon as possible. An expensive CAT scan facility that has now become obsolete and is not drawing customers can be considered to be a dog. Business units of indeterminate potential and low market share are generally placed in the category of others. The potential for an ambulatory-surgery service could be very strong even though it may not be providing good returns. Such a service can turn either into a star or into a dog with time. The application of the BG matrix to a healthcare institution is provided below: High Low High Stars Others Low Cash Cow Dogs Application of GE Matrix The GE matrix was developed to overcome the problems commonly associated with the BCG Matrix like lack of plausible business information and its focus on commodities.  [29]  The GE screen has a 3X3 matrix that includes a medium category, uses industry attractiveness rather than market growth and substitutes the market share element of the BCG matrix with competitive position.  [30]  Book on strategic marketing The GE Matrix for a healthcare institution is provided below. Market attractiveness is on the vertical axis and competitive position is on the horizontal axis. Strong Average Weak High Oncology Surgery Radiology Med Cardiac Care Orthopaedics Pathology Low Dental care X Ray Medical Stores Nine functions of a healthcare institution have been graded with the use of the GE matrix in terms of market attractiveness on the vertical scale and competitiveness on the horizontal scale. A certain amount of approximation and estimation has been applied because of the compulsion of putting only one unit in a box. The organisation has special skills, including the services of high quality specialists in oncology, cardiac care, and surgery and should reinforce these functions with appropriate investments in equipment, staffing and resources. The three squares on the right hand bottom of the matrix represent functions that are commonly available and do not tangibly add to the competitive position or the market attractiveness of the organisation. These functions are however required and should be carefully consolidated. The three other functions, namely dental care, orthopaedics and radiology have strengths either market attraction or in competitiveness and should be selectively and c arefully strengthened.

Free Essays - Animal Farm :: Animal Farm

George Orwell's Animal Farm is a political satire of a totalitarian society ruled by a mighty dictatorship, in all probability an allegory for the events surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917. The animals of "Manor Farm" overthrow their human master after a long history of mistreatment. Led by the pigs, the farm animals continue to do their work, only with more pride, knowing that they are working for themselves, as opposed to working for humans. Little by little, the pigs become dominant, gaining more power and advantage over the other animals, so much so that they become as corrupt and power-hungry as their predecessors, the humans. The theme in Animal Farm maintains that in every society there are leaders who, if given the opportunity, will likely abuse their power. The book begins in the barnyard of Mr. Jones' "Manor Farm". The animals congregate at a meeting led by the prize white boar, Major. Major points out to the assembled animals that no animal in England is free. He further explains that the products of their labor is stolen by man, who alone benefits. Man, in turn, gives back to the animals the bare minimum which will keep them from starvation while he profits from the rest. The old boar tells them that the source of all their problems is man, and that they must remove man from their midst to abolish tyranny and hunger. Days later Major dies, but the hope and pride which he gave the other animals does not die. Under the leadership of the pigs, the most intelligent of the animals, they rebel against their human master managing to overthrow him. After the rebellion, under the direction of Napoleon, the most outspoken pig, and Snowball, the most eloquent pig, the animals continue to work the farm successfully. As with all societies, the animals have laws which must be obeyed. Their laws stated that animals shall never become like humans; cruel and manipulative. They shall not wear clothing nor sleep in beds. Most importantly, they are to respect one another's equality and killing another animal is strictly forbidden. Meanwhile, the pigs as leaders are taking bigger food rations for themselves justifying their behavior as something necessary for the "brains" of their animal society. At this point we begin to suspect that the pigs will abuse their positions and power in this animal society. Mr. Jones tries to reclaim his power but the animals prevent him from doing so in what they call "The Battle of the Cowshed". After the battle, Napoleon drives Snowball off the farm telling everyone that Snowball was on Mr.

Death of a Salesman :: essays papers

Drug For Sanity in Death of a Salesman Willy Lowman’s Drug for Sanity No one’s life can be classified as â€Å"normal†. Everyone has conflicts that they have to eventually deal with. People do in fact deal with these personal conflicts in different ways; some take it easy some take it hard. Some ignore the problem as long as possible and some deal with it right away to get it out of the way. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Lowman’s technique to his problem solving leads to severe consequences. Willy never does anything to help the situation; he just escapes into the past to happier times when there were few problems. He uses this escape as if it was a drug, and as the play goes on, this drug becomes dangerous, leading him to his death. The first time Willy is seen dazing off into the past is when he discovers Biff arriving home. The conversation between Willy and Linda reflects Willy’s disappointment in Biff and what Willy thinks he has become basically a bum. After failing to deal with his feelings, he escapes to a time when things were better for his family. It is not uncommon for one to think of better times at low points in their life in order to cheer them up so that they are able to deal with problems, but Willy Lowman takes it a step ahead. His stubbornness to accept reality is so strong that in his mind he is placed back in time to relive one of the happier days of his life. It was a time when no one argued. Willy and Linda were younger, the financial situation was less of a burden, and Biff and Happy welcomed their father back home from being on a long work trip. Willy’s need for the â€Å"drug† reassures himself that everything will turn out okay and that his family will be happy once again like it was in the past. The next flashback occurs during a discussion between Willy and Linda. Willy is depressed about his inability to make enough money to support his family, his looks, and his personality. â€Å" My God if business doesn’t pick up, I don’t know what I am going to do!†(1808) is what Willy said after Linda figures out that they are in fact in debt. Then he blurts out without letting any reply to his comment, â€Å"I’m Fat. Death of a Salesman :: essays papers Drug For Sanity in Death of a Salesman Willy Lowman’s Drug for Sanity No one’s life can be classified as â€Å"normal†. Everyone has conflicts that they have to eventually deal with. People do in fact deal with these personal conflicts in different ways; some take it easy some take it hard. Some ignore the problem as long as possible and some deal with it right away to get it out of the way. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Lowman’s technique to his problem solving leads to severe consequences. Willy never does anything to help the situation; he just escapes into the past to happier times when there were few problems. He uses this escape as if it was a drug, and as the play goes on, this drug becomes dangerous, leading him to his death. The first time Willy is seen dazing off into the past is when he discovers Biff arriving home. The conversation between Willy and Linda reflects Willy’s disappointment in Biff and what Willy thinks he has become basically a bum. After failing to deal with his feelings, he escapes to a time when things were better for his family. It is not uncommon for one to think of better times at low points in their life in order to cheer them up so that they are able to deal with problems, but Willy Lowman takes it a step ahead. His stubbornness to accept reality is so strong that in his mind he is placed back in time to relive one of the happier days of his life. It was a time when no one argued. Willy and Linda were younger, the financial situation was less of a burden, and Biff and Happy welcomed their father back home from being on a long work trip. Willy’s need for the â€Å"drug† reassures himself that everything will turn out okay and that his family will be happy once again like it was in the past. The next flashback occurs during a discussion between Willy and Linda. Willy is depressed about his inability to make enough money to support his family, his looks, and his personality. â€Å" My God if business doesn’t pick up, I don’t know what I am going to do!†(1808) is what Willy said after Linda figures out that they are in fact in debt. Then he blurts out without letting any reply to his comment, â€Å"I’m Fat.

Tropical Rainforest Destruction Essay -- Deforestation Essays

Tropical Rainforest Destruction Introduction â€Å"In the minute that it takes you to read this page, a piece of tropical rainforest the size of 10 city blocks will vanish forever† (Lewis, 1990, pg 40). Rainforests around the world are being destroyed at such rates, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. The rainforests are â€Å"home to over half of all living things [and]†¦cover less than 7 percent of the land surface of the globe† (Lewis, 1990, pg 14). This paper analyzes tropical rainforest destruction from many different perspectives because there are several contributing factors to the destruction of rainforests. Topics addressed in this paper include: an introduction to rainforests, causes and examples of rainforest destruction around the world, results of rainforest destruction and solutions to rainforest destruction. At the end of this paper there is an appendix to aid the reader in understanding the concepts presented. Why are rainforests important? Rainforests are an asset to the entire world. The destruction of rainforests worldwide is a problem because it eliminates habitat for wild life and depletes the earth of vital environmental services. â€Å"Environmental services are what nature provides for human beings at no charge. Conservationists point out that people take these services for granted, so they are undervalued, exploited, and disappearing†¦We rely on forests for wood, medications, and food†¦on plants to pump oxygen into the atmosphere and absorb carbon dioxide; on wildlife to keep pests in check and distribute seeds and pollinate plants that provide us with food and other goods†¦If we put a price tag on these services, we might be more disposed to protecting earth’s other living inhabit... ...edication will prevent the complete decimation and destruction of the rainforests upon which the planet so desperately depends. Literature Cited 1) Alexander Cockburn, S. H. (1989). The Fate of the Forest. New York: Courier International Ltd. 2) Gallant, R. A. (1991). Earth's Vanishing Forests. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 3) Gay, K. (2001). Rainforests of the World (2 ed.). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc. 4) Institute, W. W. (2000). Vital Signs 2000 (1 ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 5) Josep M. Camarasa, R. F. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Biosphere (Vol. 2). Michigan: The Gale Group. 6) Jukofsky, D. (2002). Encyclopedia of Rainforests. Connecticut: Oryx Press. 7) Lewis, S. (1990). The Rainforest Book. Los Angeles: Living Planet Press. 8) http://www.brsi.msu.edu/rfrc/stats/wri/rank.html

Kellie Castle

KELLIE’S CASTLE Malaysia is multi-ethnic country which has passed through a long history of colonisation by Europeans. Apart from its majestic beauty seen in the sprawling landscape, historical sightseeing also forms a main part of Malaysian tourism. One of the important historical sites in Malaysia was Kellie’s Castle. (Fairul Halim) Kellie’s Castle is the most important attraction in Batu Gajah, Perak. Located approximately 30 kilometers from Ipoh is the historical legacy of a great story behind its construction. The landlord, William Kellie Smith was born on 1 Mac 1870 at the Moray Firth, Dallas, Scotland.In the first Mac 1890 at the age 20, he arrived to Tanah Melayu . (Fazlina & Khatijah) Late William Kellie Smith ( 1870 – 1926) – Photo courtesy of Lamography. com He bounced around several business opportunities finding some success but it wasn't until he meets Alma Baker that he struck gold. Baker obtained several government projects to build roads in South Perak. Their partnership in these projects led to quite a bit of profits. Enough to purchase a 900 acre piece of land for his rubber tree plantation and homely estate named Kinta Kellas. (Fazlina)Kellie’s Castle is a symbol of love like the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. In 1903, he returned to Scotland to marry his sweetheart Agnes. He brought her back to his home in Tanah Melayu and later that year the couple was blessed with a daughter named Helen. William Smith desperately wanted a son and heir to take over his empire. In 1915 their second child, a boy named Anthony, was born and this may have been the impetus to start construction of a major extension to their stately home. (Hafizuddin & Khairi) Plans were drawn up and craftsmen imported from India to begin construction.Built with materials such as stone marble was imported from India, while ceramic tile imported from Italy. Bricks were used kind of apricot made in Tanah Melayu itself. The wall of the castle wa s built with a very unique method, using a mixture of white duck egg, sand, brown sugar and honey. It was to take 10 years to build Kellie's Castle. (Fairul Halim) However, it ran in to one major set back. Many of the workers contracted the Spanish Flu and died in the early 1920s. Killing many of the workers in the Kellas Estate . Another workers constructing Smith’s dream castle also became victims of the flu.World War I slowed the process even more. He had already spent a fortune on his house, lost a lot of money because of this. (Khairi) In 1926 William Kellie Smith and his daughter, visited Britain to see his wife and son and then proceeded to Lisbon, Portugal from where he was ordering a lift to install in the Castle, which would have been the first elevator in Tanah Melayu. Unfortunately while in Portugal, William was attacked pneumococcal disease are chronic, he eventually died in Lisbon on 11 December 1926 at the age of 56 years.He was buried there. (Khadijah) After t he death of her husband, Agnes later packed up and left Tanah Melayu with her children back to Scotland. She sold the castle to a British company called Harrisons and Crossfield. In the end, Kellie’s Castle was never completed. Fortunately the Malaysian Government, realising its tourism potential and heritage value, have since cleared the creepers and trees growing on the site and have opened it as a tourist attraction. (Hafizuddin) -548 words-

Environment Human Health

A few solutions that has already been implemented is recycling (the reduce and reuse affect), use sees chemicals such as coal, or gasoline, and to educate more people about what is going on with our planet. When did our planet create recycling? Recycling dates back to BBC to current day. Over the centuries we have grown and matured in how to recycle. This includes how we collect rainwater to how we dispose of our bowels. During and after the World War II, the United States became more involved in recycling.Instead of constantly dumping waste into landfills or into our water source we started to make our oils and gasoline more economically safe. In our gasoline and oils we took out chemical that killed most children and that chemical was lead. Lead was very common in homes dated before the late ass's. It was used in paint. Most children are attracted to color and are prone to putting things into their mouths. In older homes when paint started to chip and children saw it they would pul l it and put it into their mouths.This caused a lot of deaths and poisonings. The United States helped to reduce this by banning the use of lead paint in the early ass's late ass's (Wendy Koch LISA, Today 5/18/2012). In order to inform our nation of what was happening to young children, we had o educate them. The United States communities have provided education programs that are active in the community to help establish problems such as the lead poisonings and air pollution.Problems such as this will only be addressed to areas where resources such as television, Internet or newspapers are available. If a country lacks these supplies they will not know what can harm them or what is harming our planet. This video The Link between Air Pollution, Lead Poisoning and Aggressive Behaviors stood out to me the most because this is something that concerns me the most. The fact that a lot of people around the globe are not educated about what happens in our environment can become detrimental to our planet.