Building an Infrastructure for Empirical Research on Social Enterprise: Challenges and Opportunities

2014 ◽  
pp. 241-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lee ◽  
Julie Battilana ◽  
Ting Wang
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Challenges and Opportunities of Micro or Small Social Enterprises in Rwanda

2019 ◽  
pp. 254-270
Author(s):  
Eugene Remy Rwamigabo
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Small Enterprises ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Social Organizations ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

The purpose of this chapter is to provide insights on micro or small social enterprises in Rwanda with a focus on their opportunities and challenges. The author carried out a literature review and interviews. The chapter explores the emergence and evolution of economically oriented social organizations in Rwanda. The context of emergence of social enterprise in Rwanda was shaped, among other factors, by Anglo-Saxon influence. The chapter underlines other contextual factors underlying the current emergence of micro or small social enterprises notably the aftermath of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, and the current entrepreneurships trends. Finally, the chapter examines opportunities shaping micro or small enterprises and investigates challenges facing micro or small social enterprises in Rwanda. The chapter explores and provides insights into the specificities and the current trends of micro or small social enterprise in Rwanda with a view to fostering further analysis for several research avenues.

Chalkle: The case study of an edtech social enterprise aspiring to transform Adult and Community Education in Aotearoa, New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Carine Stewart
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Community Education ◽  
Education Technology ◽  
Sustainable Solutions ◽  
Exploratory Case Study ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

<p>This thesis examines Chalkle, an edtech social enterprise, through an exploratory case study which offers an in-depth analysis of its operations, policies, procedures, and practices in the period between July 2012 and December 2015. The study of Chalkle explores the company’s aspirations to transform the field of Adult and Community Education (ACE) in Aotearoa, New Zealand. This thesis examines the motivations, challenges, and opportunities presented by Chalkle from the perspective of various stakeholders: learners, teachers, providers, Champions, as well as the organisation’s co-founders. The study of Chalkle offers insights into an alternative model of ACE, which harnessed the power of a technology platform and utilised a social enterprise business model to encourage greater connectivity within the ACE sector. An analysis of Chalkle is important in order to explore and understand how collaboration across and beyond the ACE sector, in this case through a mix of education, technology, and business, could offer insights into sustainable solutions to withstand changes in government policy and funding.</p>

scholarly journals The distinctive challenges and opportunities for creating leadership within social enterprises

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad Jackson ◽  
Matthew Nicoll ◽  
Michael J. Roy
Keyword(s):  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Leadership Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
The Social ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Legal Forms

Purpose The purpose of this study is to present a systematic assessment of the distinctive challenges and opportunities associated with creating leadership within the realm of social enterprise. A modified and expanded form of Grint’s leadership lenses heuristic framework (i.e. person, position, process, performance, purpose and place) is used to examine and highlight what is particular about creating leadership in social enterprises by virtue of their distinctive missions, strategic contexts, legal forms and organisational structures and cultures. Based on this initial exploration, five research priorities are identified to better understand and then develop leadership practice in the social enterprise realm. Design/methodology/approach An enhanced heuristic framework for systematically examining leadership within the social enterprise research literature has been applied, drawing on the leadership practice literature. The application is illustrated through six instrumental case studies. Findings While there are a number of similarities between leading in the social enterprise realm and leading within the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, the levels of complexity, ambiguity and the lack of an established theoretical and practical knowledge base makes creating leadership in the social enterprise sector that much more challenging. On the positive side of the ledger, the fact that the purpose is at the core of social enterprise means that it is relatively easier to use the purpose to create a basis for common meaningful action, compared to leadership within the private and public sectors. Related to this, given the strongly local or “glocal” nature of social enterprise, a ready opportunity exists for leaders to draw upon a place as a strategic resource in mobilising followers and other stakeholders. The novel, uncertain and pioneering nature of a social enterprise is also arguably more tolerant and accommodating of a leadership mindset that focuses on posing questions regarding “wicked” problems compared to public, private for-profit and, indeed, traditional not-for-profit sector organisations. Originality/value As far as we can ascertain, this is the first systematic attempt to examine the distinctive challenges and opportunities associated with creating leadership within the social enterprise realm. The application of the heuristic framework leads to the identification of five key inter-related lines of empirical research into leadership practices within social enterprises.

Understanding innovation in Canadian wine regions: an exploratory study

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (4) ◽  
pp. 882-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Doloreux ◽  
Anthony Frigon
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Wine Industry ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Innovation ◽  
Innovation Activities ◽  
Innovation Modes ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Strategy Innovation ◽  
Cool Climate

Purpose Despite the importance of innovation in and the growth of the wine industry in recent years, empirical research devoted to innovation in this industry remains scarce. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to filling this gap by exploring innovation among Canadian wine firms. Design/methodology/approach The data used in this paper are drawn from an original firm-level survey conducted between April and July 2018 to study the business and innovation strategies of Canadian winery firms over the 2015–2017 period. Findings First, the study has identified four innovation modes which are distinct in terms of firms’ strategy, innovation activities, and knowledge sourcing and openness. The second finding is that these different innovation modes are associated with different innovation outputs. The third finding is that there here is a tendency for certain innovation modes to better reflect firms in some regions, although all innovation modes are represented to different degrees in each of the three wine regions. Originality/value Empirical research devoted to innovation in this industry remains scarce. This paper contributes to filling this gap by exploring innovation among Canadian wine firms. These firms deal with several challenges and opportunities arising from the production and transformation of cool-climate grapes that impact on business innovation approaches.

scholarly journals OPEN DATA PLATFORMS FOR A DATA COMMONS, HOW TO SUPPORT THE LIFE OF DATA BEYOND RELEASE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Hamilton ◽  
Stefano De Paoli ◽  
Anna Wilson ◽  
Greg Singh
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Open Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Government Data ◽  
The One ◽  
Project Data ◽  
Data Commons

In this paper we will discuss the challenges and opportunities of infusing in open data a life beyond its original public release. Indeed, it is often unclear whether open data has a life beyond the one it was initially collected for, to the extent that some authors have even described the public reuse of government data as no more than a “myth”. We will present the results of the project Data Commons Scotland launched with the idea of creating an Internet based prototype platform for creating a trustworthy common of open data, thus facilitating a life for data beyond the one of the original producer. We will discuss the results of our empirical research for the project based on 31 qualitative interviews with a number of actors, such as data producers or citizens. Moreover, we will present the results of the co-design conducted for the design of the Data Commons Scotland platform. With the results of our analysis we will reflect on the challenges of building Internet based platforms for open data supporting the generation of a common.

scholarly journals South African Reformed Baptists and contextualisation: Contemporary understanding, attitudes and praxis

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Koning ◽  
P.J. Buys
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Church Growth ◽  
South African ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Theology ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
Christian Witness

Postmodernism and urbanisation pose significant challenges and opportunities to Christian witness in the West. In South Africa, Reformed Baptists as well as the Reformed Churches in South Africa (RCSA) seem to be battling to engage with and reach new generations in the cities with the gospel. While the reasons for this may be many and varied, one reason for our faltering and seemingly ineffective witness can be traced back to inadequate and unbiblical views of contextualisation. While South African Reformed Baptists are passionately committed to biblical truth and orthodoxy, they appear to be negligent in the matter of faithful biblical contextualisation. Reformed Baptist pastors appear to be slow to take cognisance of and adjust to the unique challenges and opportunities that Postmodernism and urbanisation presents to gospel ministry in South Africa. Some conservative Baptists are suspicious of, or even critical of contextualisation, considering it a compromise with liberal theology. This article provides an overview of the findings of an empirical research that was done among a selected group of Reformed Baptist pastors as well as a selected group of ministers of the RCSA concerning their views on and practice of contextualisation. The article also provides some critical reflection on the findings and some proposals for more effective outreach to postmodern urban people.Keywords: Contextualisation, Reformed, Baptists Reformed Churches in South Africa Church, growth, Postmodernism

scholarly journals Cultural Changes in Neural Structure and Function

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. W. Varnum ◽  
Ryan Scott Hampton
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
Empirical Testing ◽  
Neural Structure ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
And Function

Human cultures are not static. An emerging body of research has documented cultural changes in a wide variety of behaviors, psychological tendencies, and cultural products. Increasingly, this field has also begun to test hypothesis regarding the causes of these changes and to create forecasts for future patterns of change. Yet to date, the question of how our brains may change as a function of systematic changes in our environments has received relatively little attention and scant empirical testing. In the present chapter we begin by reviewing the literature on cultural change, including Varnum and Grossmann’s program of research using a behavioral ecology framework to understand patterns of cultural change. Next we offer some initial predictions for changes in neural structure and function that may occur in the coming decades. Finally, we offer some ideas about how empirical research testing these predictions might be conducted and discuss challenges and opportunities for extending the study of cultural change to neuroscience.

Designing Research on Radicalisation Using Social Media Content: Data Protection Regulations as Challenges and Opportunities

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-72
Author(s):  
Manjana Sold ◽  
Hande Abay Gaspar ◽  
Julian Junk
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
General Data Protection Regulation ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Using Data

The analysis of data retrieved from social media has become more and more important. However, working with social media and audio-visual formats as data sources has its own challenges. Communication patterns are increasingly diverse shifting to closed spaces and between platforms, not only but in particular for those who are radicalized or becoming radicalized. Consequently, ethical and legal issues are pertinent to discourses about the feasibility and acceptance of scientific studies in online environments. However, despite limitations and challenges, legal and moral guidelines provide also opportunities and flexibility particularly for researchers aiming to explore virtual space. This chapter summarizes the current debates on weighing legal and moral principles. It provides guidance of the various requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and related ethical considerations researchers face when designing empirical research using data from social media platforms. In a solution-oriented way, we give an overview of some key ethical and legal considerations that can serve as a basis for prudently designed empirical research projects. The overview is informed by our research experiences in the field of Salafist jihadist radicalisation in Germany.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document