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Managing Challenges in Social Enterprises: The Case of Sweden
University of Gävle, Faculty of Education and Business Studies, Department of Business and Economic Studies.
University of Gävle, Faculty of Education and Business Studies, Department of Business and Economic Studies.
2015 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Sustainable development
The essay/thesis is partially on sustainable development according to the University's criteria
Abstract [en]

Aim: There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of Social Enterprises (SE) to improve the welfare of society. Few empirical studies have attempted to investigate what are the challenges SEs face and how they manage them. A number of researchers have reported that SEs often have a negative connotation. The aim of this study is to investigate challenges social enterprises face in Sweden.Method: The study adopted a Qualitative approach. Primary data is gathered by interviewing 10 managers of social enterprise from 5 different SEs in Sweden. The interview was made in three different locations, Gävle, Uppsala and Tierp. De-coding the qualitative research data through content analysis, an interpretive analysis was used classifying the data concerning responses by highlighting important messages.Findings and Conclusion: SEs face diverse challenges: Funding, Public Image, Sales, Network and Cooperation, Governance/Structure, Leadership and Management. One of the more significant finding to emerge from this study is that, the foundations-access to finance is one of the critical challenges on which the fate of each SE depends. Most of the times, societies do not acknowledge the role of social enterprises and the values they bring to the society. From this, SEs cannot attract support of any kind. SEs lack the understanding and significance of marketing. Making people understanding SEs’s role, would provide them with a positive public image and thereafter support.Suggestions for future research: The study has a small sample size and results cannot be generalizable. A natural progression of this work is to analyse: Challenges on SEs with focus on Society, The impact of Society on SEs, Public identity of SEs and importance of Society.Contribution of the thesis: Dependency on fundraising, grants and donations are heavily connected with widespread lack of understanding the impact of SEs on society. SEs managers should apply different marketing tactics to communicate their role in welfare of the community.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2015. , p. 49
Keywords [en]
Managerial Challenges, Governance Structure, Funding, Network, Public Image, Leadership, Organization.
National Category
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-19267Archive number: FE1:43/2015OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hig-19267DiVA, id: diva2:809344
Subject / course
Business administration
Educational program
Business administration – master’s programme (one year)
Presentation
2015-01-20, 13:00 (English)
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2015-06-04 Created: 2015-05-02 Last updated: 2016-01-07Bibliographically approved

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SEsC(1255 kB)2321 downloads
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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • harvard-cite-them-right
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • sv-SE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • de-DE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf