scholarly journals Challenges Facing Social Enterprises in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Abramson ◽  
Kara C. Billings
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Hybrid Organizations ◽  
Profit Motive ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Social Purpose ◽  
Legal Forms ◽  
The U.S

AbstractHybrid organizations that combine social purpose and profit motive appear to have grown significantly in number in the U.S. in recent decades. However, these organizations, which we call “social enterprises,” face challenges that impede their growth and hinder their ability to deliver greater benefits. To better understand what these challenges are, this paper surveys the growing literature on social enterprises which suggests that social enterprises now face these major obstacles: ill-fitting legal forms, obstacles to effective governance, problems in evaluating impact, weak supportive networks, difficulties in raising funding, and management tensions. Deepening understanding of the challenges facing social enterprises should help guide those interested in strengthening public policy toward social enterprise and other aspects of the support system for these organizations.

scholarly journals Of Bodies Politic and Pecuniary: A Brief History of Corporate Purpose

2020 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
David Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
American Business ◽  
Business Corporation ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Early American ◽  
Bright Line ◽  
History Of

American corporate law has long drawn a bright line between for-profit and non-profit corporations. In recent years, hybrid or social enterprises have increasingly put this bright-line distinction to the test. This Article asks what we can learn about the purpose of the American business corporation by examining its history and development in the United States in its formative period from roughly 1780-1860. This brief history of corporate purpose suggests that the duty to maximize profits in the for-profit corporation is a relatively recent development. Historically, the American business corporation grew out of an earlier form of corporation that was neither for-profit nor nonprofit in today’s parlance but rather, served a multitude of municipal, religious, charitable, educational, and eventually business purposes in early nineteenth-century New England. The purposes of early American business corporations—rather than maximization of profit to private shareholders— were often overtly public, involving development of local transportation, finance, and other much-needed economic infrastructure. With the rise of factory-based manufacturing, railroads, and other capital-intensive industries in the middle decades of the nineteenth century and the advent of general incorporation statutes, the purpose of the American business corporation shifted fundamentally from public to private. By 1860, the stage was set for the modern firm. This Article concludes that the corporation has no intrinsic purpose. The corporation’s defining features are separate legal personality and the ability to aggregate capital toward any otherwise lawful end, whether for-profit or nonprofit. Social enterprises today more closely resemble the early American business corporation than the profit-maximizing modern firm. Social enterprise should be seen less as a legally uncertain novelty than a return to the business corporation’s nineteenth-century American roots. Finally, this Article suggests potential limitations for social enterprise.

Gold Value Clauses and Public Policy

1970 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-169
Author(s):  
Eliahu Hirschberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Market Price ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The Past ◽  
Tier System ◽  
Free Market Price ◽  
Joint Resolution ◽  
The U.S

Gold value clauses are rarely used in England. In the United States, before the Joint Resolution of both Houses of Congress of January 5, 1933, which abrogated gold clauses in the U.S. retrospectively and prospectively, declaring them to be against public policy, gold coin clauses were a common occurrence. In the past on the European continent much use has been made of gold value clauses.In England gold value clauses may assume greater importance in the future. Lately, the two-tier system of gold prices has been introduced, one between Central Banks and another at the free market price. In an individual gold value clause, the question of which price is recognized by the parties, who probably did not in fact foresee the possibility of the creation of a two-tier system, is one of construction. Even today, a party to a gold value clause which refers to the free market price may gain a profit, if there is an appreciation of the price of gold on the free market above the U.S. government minimum level of $35.00 per ounce.

International trade protectionist policies and in-state preferences: A link

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sawsan Abutabenjeh ◽  
Stephen B. Gordon ◽  
Berhanu Mengistu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
The World ◽  
State Preference ◽  
Public Policy Instruments ◽  
The U.S

By implementing various forms of preference policies, countries around the world intervene in their economies for their own political and economic purposes. Likewise, twenty-five states in the U.S. have implemented in-state preference policies (NASPO, 2012) to protect and support their own vendors from out-of-state competition to achieve similar purposes. The purpose of this paper is to show the connection between protectionist public policy instruments noted in the international trade literature and the in-state preference policies within the United States. This paper argues that the reasons and the rationales for adopting these preference policies in international trade and the states' contexts are similar. Given the similarity in policy outcomes, the paper further argues that the international trade literature provides an overarching explanation to help understand what states could expect in applying in-state preference policies.

Public policy rules and norms in choice of a nesting place of a social enterprise

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herrington J. Bryce
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Informed Choice ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Policy Rules ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Stage Process ◽  
Nesting Place

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider how public policy rules and norms embedded in the operation and financing of firms and nonprofits may affect the choice of one or the other for nesting a social enterprise while reducing the risk of failure due to an initial bad choice. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is conceptual and literature based. It identifies and evaluates factors in public policy that are embedded in the rules and norms of operating and financing firms and nonprofits that could materially affect the choice of a nesting place of a social enterprise. It treats the choice as a two-stage process: whether firm or nonprofit and what type of firm or what type of nonprofit. Findings – The choice of a structural form for nesting a social enterprise is dependent upon the public policies embedded in each form that affect the probability of venture success and entrepreneurial remorse. Research limitations/implications – This paper suggests that public policy norms and rules are deserving variables in the empirical and experimental determinants of choice and success in social enterprises. Practical implications – This paper may be used for conducting experiments of choice, as a teaching or other pedagogical tool, and for guiding entrepreneurs in making informed choices as to where to nest a social enterprise. Originality/value – The literature contains several articles on how personality, alertness, opportunity, context, and similar factors affect entrepreneurial behavior. This paper is unique in that it adds public policy to that list by demonstrating that the norms and rules derived from policy (federal and state) are determinative of an informed choice.

scholarly journals Typology and Policy for Small Farms

1980 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luther Tweeten ◽  
G. Bradley Cilley ◽  
Isaac Popoola
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Assistance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Farm Income ◽  
Small Farms ◽  
Small Farm ◽  
American Society ◽  
The U.S

The trend toward larger and fewer farms has alarmed many persons who view the small farm as an integral part of American society. Advocates of the small farm have called for policies to halt the continuing decline in the number of small farms in the United States. In evaluating the merits of potential policies, understanding the composition of small farms in the U.S. is critical.Appropriate public policy would be very different if small farms were operated solely by households with substantial off-farm income and who need no public assistance, solely by households pursuing an alternative to urban-industrial society's lifestyle and who want no public assistance, or solely by households who are aged and disabled and who want and need public assistance to avoid absolute deprivation.

The developmental state and social enterprise in South Korea

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bokgyo Jeong
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
The South ◽  
Content Type ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Role Of The State

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the distinctiveness of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalism perspective. From this perspective, the author focuses on the proactive roles played by the government in the process of emergence and formulation of social enterprises in South Korea. The author roots this paper in the concept of the developmental state and examines how this concept applies to newly emerging social enterprises in South Korea. Design/methodology/approach – This paper first introduces the process of South Korean social enterprises’ emergence as an independent phenomenon. The author explains the process with a link to governmental actions, such as the introduction of public programs and government acts. Second, this paper introduces the concept of developmental state which captures the proactive role of the state in social, economic and political development in South Korea. Third, this paper applies the institutional framework proposed by Kerlin (2013) to see how the South Korean social enterprise model can be located from a comparative perspective and how the South Korean model can contribute to the expansion of the existing framework. Findings – This paper finds that the state involvement in South Korea is a reflection of the historical path of the developmental state. The cross-comparison of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalist approach finds that the South Korean case may contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate by suggesting taking a Weberian ideal type of an interventionist state into account for an extension of the proposed framework. This paper also uncovered the strategic approach of the South Korean Government in utilizing this public policy tool by adopting and combining existing social enterprise models. Research limitations/implications – This paper demonstrates the state’s intents to mobilize economic and societal resources as public policy intervention tools, which can be understood from a developmental state context. This role would be distinct when compared to those in Europe and the USA. This paper has a limitation to restrict its analytical scope to formally recognized social enterprises because it focuses on the role of the state in utilizing social enterprises for public policy agenda: social development and social welfare provision. Practical implications – As a practical implication, this study might provide an insightful framework for South Korean public policy makers, outlining the contributions and limitations of state-led public policies associated with social enterprises. As seen in the historical path of governmental interventions, governmental public policies do not necessarily guarantee their sustainable community impacts without the consideration of private or nonprofit actors’ spontaneous involvements. The flip side of state-led interventions requires policy makers to become more cautious, as they address social problems with public policy intents. Originality/value – The majority of current studies on social enterprises in South Korea mainly focus on reporting the quantitative increase in the number of registered social enterprises. Beyond this quantitative description of its achievement, this paper also provides a historical narration and philosophical background of this phenomenon. Additionally, it shows how this artificial government intervention in social enterprises could be accepted from a historical perspective and brought remarkable responses from the private and civil society sectors in South Korea.

An Assessment of the Economic Effects of the Menu of U.S. Trade Policies

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1850070 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kozo Kiyota ◽  
Robert M Stern
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare Effects ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
The U.S

The Michigan Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model of World Production and Trade is used to calculate the aggregate welfare and sectoral employment effects of the menu of U.S. trade policies. The menu of policies encompasses the various preferential U.S. bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) negotiated and in process, unilateral removal of existing trade barriers, and global (multilateral) free trade. The welfare impacts of the FTAs on the United States are shown to be rather small in absolute and relative terms. The sectoral employment effects are also generally small but vary across the individual sectors depending on the patterns of the bilateral liberalization. The welfare effects on the FTA partner countries are mostly positive though generally small, but there are some indications of potentially disruptive employment shifts in some partner countries. There are indications of trade diversion and detrimental welfare effects on nonmember countries for some of the FTAs analyzed. In comparison to the welfare gains from the U.S. FTAs, the gains from both unilateral trade liberalization by the United States and the FTA partners and from global (multilateral) free trade are shown to be rather substantial and more uniformly positive for all countries in the global trading system. The U.S. FTAs are based on “hub” and “spoke” arrangements. It is shown that the spokes emanate out in different and often overlapping directions, suggesting that the complex of bilateral FTAs may create distortions of the global trading system, which could be avoided if multilateral liberalization in the context of the Doha Round were to be carried out. Kozo Kiyota is Associate Professor of International Economics in the Faculty of Business Administration, Yokohama National University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Manufacturing Management Research Center (MMRC), the University of Tokyo and a Faculty Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). He received his Ph.D. from Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. His research focuses on empirical microeconomics. He has published articles in the International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and The World Economy. Robert M. Stern is Professor of Economics and Public Policy (Emeritus) in the Department of Economics and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.

scholarly journals Policy framework and legal forms of social enterprise in Central and Eastern Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 875-883
Author(s):  
Daniela Staicu
Keyword(s):  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Legal Form ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
Policy Frameworks ◽  
Legal Forms ◽  
Eastern European Countries

AbstractIn Central and Eastern European countries, the transition to a market economy stimulated civil society initiatives that in the past had been either discouraged or had become part of the Communist state system, and opened new pathways to entrepreneurial initiatives. The 1990s was an open window to the creation of a significant number of non-profit organizations, including the pioneering establishment of the first social enterprises. When these countries became members of the European Union, the process of legal institutionalization of social enterprises started to be discussed and has taken place at various stages. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the policy frameworks and the legal forms and of social enterprises in eight countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The research seeks to determine the extent to which the development of national policy frameworks influences the development of legal forms under which social enterprises operate. For the purpose of this analysis, data were collected from relevant to this subject country reports, studies, laws released between 2009 and 2016. The research shows that European social enterprises are often ‘hidden’ among existing legal forms either as associations and foundations with commercial activities, cooperatives serving general or collective interests and mainstream enterprises pursuing an explicit and primary social aim. Further research needs to be done to determine the potential for growth of entities operating as associations and foundations with commercial activities. Furthermore, the research concluded that the countries with specific laws on social entrepreneurship generate 61 % of the social economy activity in Central and Eastern European countries. Further research needs to be done to determine if introducing a social enterprise specific legal form, will stimulate the development of the business models under which social enterprises operate and implicitly growth.

Aging: Public Policy

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanette C. Takamura
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Population Policy ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Older Americans ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Conservative Policy ◽  
Older Adult Population ◽  
The U.S

Public policy advances in the field of aging in the United States have lagged compared to the growth of the older adult population. Policy adjustments have been driven by ideological perspectives and have been largely incremental. In recent years, conservative policy makers have sought through various legislative vehicles to eliminate or curb entitlement programs, proposing private sector solutions and touting the importance of an “ownership society” in which individual citizens assume personal responsibility for their economic and health security. The election of a Democratic majority in the U.S. House and the slim margin of votes held by Democrats in the U.S. Senate may mean a shift in aging policy directions that strengthens Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, if the newly elected members are able to maintain their seats over time. The results of the 2008 presidential election will also determine how the social, economic, and other policy concerns will be addressed as the baby boomers join the ranks of older Americans.

Public Policy Propelling the Development of UK Third Sector Social Enterprises

2017 ◽  
pp. 25-51
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
National Audit ◽  
Enterprise Development ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Development Agenda

This chapter provides an overview of political developments and public policies which enabled the development of UK third sector social enterprises. The chapter adopts a chronological framework in tracing the development of UK third sector social enterprises from the co-operative movement to the influence of the ‘Third Way' doctrine (Giddens, 1998). This expression of New Labour political values had a significant impact on shaping public policy and for third sector social enterprise development. This also included a policy solution to a range of identified social, health, environmental, community and economic problems particularly at the local and regional levels (National Audit Office, 2007), including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This was subsequently supported by European Commission's social enterprise development agenda.

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