Social Enterprises Development

Recently the world economy is going through a tough time. Many countriesincluding United States, Greece and Italy encountered repeated financial problemsafter the outbreak of economic and financial crisis in2007. The countries struck byfinancial crisis are the lich pins of the world economy. Therefore, any problem in thosecountries is contagiously affecting other countries as well as the world economy. Thedearth of financial liquidity and uncertain conditions compelled a number of countriesto cut state expenditures and adopt austerity measures. Most notable among them is thereduction in European state welfare system on the basis that the states in Europe are nomore in position to undertake huge expenses. Such measures results into the seriousshortage of social welfare in under served areas. Reduction in state welfare canpossibly adversely affect the vulnerable groups when the governments are required tospend more in order to tackle the problem of ageing population, environmentalproblems, high unemployment and growing income inequality.In the wake of frequent financial crisis and increasing economic volatility, oneway to fix the problem of welfare crisis is the introduction of social enterprises oncommercial basis. Such concepts are introduced and in operation in different countriessince1970’s. However, the theoretical and research work on social enterprise islagging far behind its actual level of development.Therefore, the broad objective of this paper is to study the theories of socialenterprise for better understanding how this field developed and what are its problemand impact. Similarly the essay is an effort to understand and compare the process ofsocial enterprise development in United Kingdom, the United States, China, and SouthKorea. In order to make our analysis up to the mark, we will trace back the history,law and causal relationship between events that shaped social enterprise in UnitedKingdom, the U.S, China and S. Korea. Subsequently, we conduct a thorough literaturereview to understand the characteristics of social enterprises and compare themobjectively in the above four countries. Finally we present our conclusion and policyrecommendations for optimally utilizing the concept of social enterprises. The paper is divided into five chapters. Introduction is given in Chapter1thatincludes background and significance of social enterprises, review of researchinnovation and possible short comings of the paper. In this chapter we tried to justifyand present reasons for choosing comparative analysis of social enterprises system inthe UK, United States, China and South Korea as our research topic.Chapter2is about the basic problems of social enterprises. Among a number ofdefinitions, we tried to unify the concept of social enterprise and come up with a singledefinition. Then, we divided social enterprise into different categories on the basis ofcertain criteria. Similarly, we will compare the traditional non-profit social enterpriseand for-profit social enterprise organizations.Chapter3analyses internal and external factors of the social enterprise and themain problems such enterprises face in operation. Internal factors are consist ofbusiness content and business culture, while external factors include social awarenessand trust level of social enterprise,the legal system and national policies, communityneeds etc. keeping in view the role of these factors the chapter discusses the mainproblems social enterprises are facing in operations.Chapter4is the part of a comparative analysis of social enterprise in the UnitedKingdom, the United States, China and South Korea in different stages of thedevelopment and environment. This chapter further elaborates the characteristics ofsocial enterprises and the problems of its development. It analyzed the four countries’history, law, current situations of social enterprise, and then systematically analyzedthem.Chapter5, based on a series of above analysis, come up with conclusion and givesa number of recommendations to promote social enterprise development. The study considers that the business community around the world are working in different commercial environments, however, for the development of social enterprises it needs to setup some supervising agencies, active training of the intermediate agencies, develop appropriate performance measurement system for social enterprises, improving the socialrecognition of the social enterprises, and disseminate information about the productsand services of social enterprises.