Primary Education and Trendy Brown Jacket Essay Example for Free

Primary Education and Trendy Brown Jacket Essay The most important qualities of an outstanding teacher are those that improve teaching and enhance student learning. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and  secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting. Key note speeches often have an icebreaker – I thought I would provide the laughs – literally It only seems like yesterday that this photo of my classmates and I was taken? It was the end of my primary education, and secondary school beckoned. They were halcyon days! But, were they the best days of my life? For me they were very special. But I think the best days came later, as a result of my positive, and negative, experiences at school. Mr Halley (there he is in his trendy brown jacket – with elbow pads) was my best teacher – he was well dench! Of course that expression hadn’t been coined yet, but he was. He made learning fun, he made it interesting.

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

Absence Of The Father Figure

Absence Of The Father Figure In a play that is very well written by a famous and talented writer, the absence of a father from a middle class family shows a sever effect on the children. Thomas Lanier Williams known as Tennessee Williams was the writer of a play titled The Glass Menagerie. Mr. Williams often saw his parents engaged in violent argument and how it frightened his sister Rose. His father who was a shoe sales man forced him out of college to work for the shoe company, but later in life he returned to college and won an essay contest. Tennessee Decided to become a play writer after watching a production of Henrik Isbens named Ghosts. In his lifetime he won several awards for his writing including 2 times the Pulitzer Prize. He suffered from deprecation in the last ten years of his life after losing his loved one to cancer. Mr. Williams battled alcohol and prescription drug addiction and ended his life chocking to death on a bottle cap in his New York City residence. In his play the Glass Menagerie he clearly pictured a lower middle class family with a crippled daughter, a mother who normally brags about her glorious days, a father who had left leaving behind not much but a bizarre massage and a brother who resented all of that and want to go and follow his dreams. First, the play takes place in the Wingfields apartment across an ally from a ball room. It is narrated by Tom who is also the son of Amanda, the mother, and the brother of Laura, the daughter. Amanda is a single mother trying to raise her children under a harsh financial condition. Frequently, she talks about her old days and how she was charming and wanted by too many Gentleman callers. Tom is the son who is obligated to let go of his dreams and work in a warehouse to support his family, but he cant just forget his passion for adventure, so he relive it by watch movies and imaging himself to be the main character. Laura, Amandas daughter, is a very shy young girl who is also crippled. She confines herself to her glass collection which is so fragile to hide away from the real world. Many critics consider her to be the main character of the play because of her ideal role as well as the play name. Jim OConnor who is Toms work mate and used to be Lauras class mate. He was invited to di ner by Tom to be a Gentleman caller to Laura, but he is committed to another person. Mr. Wingfield, which is represented by a Hugh portrait in the room, he is absent and no one knows where he is, and the only thing his family knows about his departure is that he left a massage saying hello and good bye. Second, the play is a classic about a single mother devoted to her children trying to raise them under a very harsh financial condition remembering her glory days and denying the fact that her daughter is handicapped. Amanda the mother wants the best for her daughter Laura. She wants her to marry a respectable Catholic man who has a good job and not a drunkard. Amanda asked her son Tom to bring a friend from work to be the gentleman caller for her daughter. Tom is son who works in a warehouse to support his mother and sister, he does not only hate the being a warehouse worker he dreams about leaving the house to follow his desire for adventure. Laura who is disabled and lacks self confidence, she hides behind a glass collection from the real world. Laura sees her disability as something that very shameful. She dropped out of college because of her low self steam, and finally a memory of a selfish father who left his family struggling to survive. Third, the writer used so many techniques which made the play exciting and very attractive to the audience. One of many was the symbolizations in which the writer used an object to reflect on the characters personality or feeling. In the Glass Menagerie, such methodology was used. Tom used to go out for smoke on the fire escape every time he gets upset of angered by his mother. Although the fire escape was just a place, the writer used to symbolize Toms desire to escape and leave this life style behind him. The glass collection itself symbolizes the fragility of Laura. Finally, the play is a very well written and structured in which the writer emphasize the role of each family member and their effect on the rest of the family. Thinking about the play, the idea of a mother that is abandoned by her husband to care for her children without much resources is well exploited. The absence of the father had lest undeniable effect on the whole family. The mother had to work hard and take on the role of the father too to raise her children. The daughter lacked self confidence and isolated herself from the outside world. The son was unable to go after his dreams for a while having to support his mother and sister ding what he hated. A portrait of father shows a missing part of that family.

Dreams in A Raisin in the Sun Essay -- Raisin Sun essays

Dreams in A Raisin in the Sun Lena, Walter, Ruth, and Beneatha Younger all lived under the same roof, but their dreams were all different. Being the head of the household, Lena dreamed the dreams of her children and would do whatever it took to make those dreams come true. Walter, Lena's oldest son, set his dream on the liquor store that he planned to invest with the money of his mother. Beneatha, in the other hand, wanted to become a doctor when she got out of college and Ruth, Walter's wife, wanted to be wealthy. "A Raisin in the Sun" was a book about "dreams deferred", and in this book that Lorraine Hansberry had fluently described the dreams of the Younger family and how those dreams became "dreams deferred." Lena Younger, Walter and Beneatha's mother, was a widow in her early sixties who devoted her life to her children after her husband's death. Retired from working for the Holiday's family, she was waiting for her husband's insurance money to arrive. With the ten tho...

Destiny :: essays research papers

Destiny was a misunderstood girl. She was a depressed, lonely, and hopeless young woman. Her mom was strung out on drugs, and her father was nowhere to be found. She hated her life, and she hated everyone else, even the people who tried to help her out.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Destiny stayed in one the most dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit. A couple days couldn’t past, without seeing or hearing about a fight or killing. She feared walking home from school everyday. She was seventeen years old, a senior in high school, who could only read at an eighth grade level. Since her mom was never really around, she would have to stay home from school to look after her baby sister.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Destiny, where’s mom, said Kisha.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"I don’t know Kisha said Destiny.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Well I miss mom, she’s always gone.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"I know, I know, don’t worry I’m here Kisha; I’ll always be here.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It had been a few days since Destiny had seen her mom. She was very frustrated. She couldn’t believe that her mom couldn’t even call her. She cried whenever her sister was not in the room.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Why is this happening to me?†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"I didn’t do anything to deserve this kind of life, cried Destiny.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It was three o’clock in the morning when the phone rung. She answered the phone. It was her mom on the other end.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Hey baby, I’m sorry about not calling you sooner.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Yeah, well where are you at mom Kisha keeps asking about you.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Well Destiny I was just calling to tell you that I’m not coming home.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"What?†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"I’m going to New York, I need to get away from here.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Mom, what about us?†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Honey you have to take over now. I love you.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Her mom hung up, those were the last three words Destiny would ever hear her mom say. She tossed and turned the rest of the night. Kisha came into the room to wake up Destiny. She had overslept, which made her and Kisha miss school. Kisha could see the pain in Destiny’s eyes. She knew she had to tell why their mom wouldn’t be coming home and that she moving to New York. Destiny told Kisha the horrible news. They both wept and held each other until they both fell asleep.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A couple months had passed, Destiny struggled to make ends meet. She had to borrow food from her neighbors just so that they could eat every night. She knew that she would have to do something, or they would lose everything.

Business Intergration Essay

New IT developments are important to all business disciplines because they trigger changes in marketing operations, e-commerce, logistics, human resources, finance, accounting, and relationships with customers and business partners. Nothing about business or corporate strategy is untouched by IT (Turban & Volonino, 2011). The five elements of an IT-enabled business strategy Business strategy| * Contains the mission, vision, and objectives of the organization * States the company’s market strategy * Describes the unique value proposition the company offers customers * Provides the distinct value configuration of the organization| Business expectations of IT| * Describes how the company might expect IT to contribute to the success of the * business * Possible business expectations of IT include delivering better value, reducing costs, * or improving products and services| IT strategy| * Provides information on IT applications * Describes how to develop the competencies of the people who work in IT * States how IT is to be organized and controlled within the company * Describes the technical infrastructure| IT assessment| * Aims to reveal how technology helps or hinders a business * Can include network and systems performance reviews, software audits, and * concept testing and development * Can include strategic evaluations, technical reviews, and risk management * Should recommend how to use technology to meet business goals| IT plans| * Outlines a company’s long-term IT plans * Is concerned with how IT should be deployed, managed, and implemented in the * future * Should be cost effective and in line with business goals| What are the advantages of aligning business and IT strategies? There are many advantages when an organization IT strategies are aligned with the organizations business strategies. Information technology is a key business function in almost every successful organization. An effective IT strategy will enable businesses to: * Reduce cost; * Standardize processes; * Enhance productivity; * Improve risk control mechanism; * Implement new business strategies; * Facilitate organic and acquisition driven growth; * Gain competitive advantage by exploiting new technology; Other benefits of the alignment of IT and business strategy is automation, knowledge, organizational improvements, and innovation. Automation can result in increased efficiency while decreasing cost. Knowledge in IT is the ability of an organization to collect, store, process, and disseminate information. The benefit of knowledge gained from IT is cost reduction, greater efficiency, and increased revenues. IT also leads to organizational improvements which usually lead to more decentralized leadership structure which improves the overall effectiveness of the organization. Proper alignment of IT and business strategy can make an organization stand out and look different from its competitors. This alignment can provide a competitive advantage for an organization. How does IT deliver business benefits that are related to the business strategy? IT delivers business benefit by performing high-speed, high volume, and numerical computation. IT provides fast, accurate communication and collaboration unrestricted by time and location. IT gives organizations the ability to store huge amounts of information that is accessible via private networks and the internet. In addition it enables automation of routine decisions making and help facilitate complex decision making. IT also improves the ability to make informed decisions. IT also helps to facilitate collaboration, enhance customer relationships, develop new analytic capabilities, and provide feedback on performance. Reference Turban, E., & Volonino, L. (2011). Information Technology for Management (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc..

Managerial Applications of Information Technology Essay

It’s 5:45 in the morning and you are waking up to the annoying sound of your alarm clock going off. You are fighting yourself just to get out of bed to drive to work. You may have to drive 5 days out of the week and sometimes 6 or 7 if you are working overtime. Then you arrive at work only to sit at a desk for 8 hours and complete your specified work tasks that may seem never ending. For your commute home you are sitting in traffic for another 30 minutes to an hour building up more frustration. Keeping the same daily routine and watching the same black and white walls Monday through Friday can have its pitfalls. How can you change your daily routine with technology today? According to www. insight-ts. com, â€Å"A growing consideration for many companies centers on their ability to add employees to their staff while allowing them to work from home. There is a growing segment of today’s workforce that is highly-skilled and prefers to work from home. There are many professionals who find the â€Å"quietness† of a home office as a very productive environment. Businesses are also finding that many job functions work well from home-based offices allowing the business to grow without having to incur additional square-footage costs. † Business Problem In this paper I will talk about how the use of technology can allow employees to work from home, or telework. ACS, A Xerox Company employs a government sector that processes applications and ongoing cases for residents in the State of Indiana. Employees work the same routine schedules and completes the same case processing tasks every day. There are local offices where clients have the option to seek face-to-face assistance but clients are not required to come into the office for anything. Clients can complete applications online, complete interviews over the phone, and turn in documents via fax or mail. Employees are confined to computer screens for 8 hours completing tasks and resolving customer service issues over the phone. Clients also have the option to check the status of their case online or by using the automated system. I have been employed with ACS for 3 ? years and after the first year things started to go downhill. Employees began to complain about the work environment. Feelings of disgust were expressed anywhere from the temperature in the room for being too cold because management has to accommodate the hardware used in the facility to not having a flexible schedule to accommodate personal lives. Anyone who needs to handle business usually does between the hours of 8 and 5. Employees do not have the option to conduct personal business prior to arriving to work and has limited time after work. The more negative feelings build the more morale will decrease in the work environment and employees will become dissatisfied. Benefits of Solution According to the U. S General Service Administration (GSA), â€Å"Telework is an innovative business solution that enables employees to work productively away from the traditional office. Since employees are struggling to incorporate their personal lives to fit in their work schedule, management should discover a way to allow employees to conduct personal business around their work schedule. If management allows employees to telework it could lead to positive benefits. Telework does not only include working from home, but also working in cafes, while traveling, or even at your child’s football game, during half time of course. By giving your employees the option to choose when is the best time for them to complete work will lead employee satisfaction and increase in production and revenue. Approach Technology has allowed government agencies to advance by developing software to help minimize the use of paper, increase convenience for clients, and minimize the workload for employees. With all the new technology such as broadband Internet, cloud computing, and Wi-Fi employees are able to connect to specified work tasks from home. With advanced tools such as virtual private networks, call conferencing, videoconferencing, and emails employees are able to communicate from home. With client-service computing employees are able to work and communicate on a private server. Target Audience This paper will capture the minds of upper management and direct staff such as caseworkers. Management will be able to understand the benefits of allowing direct staff to telework, such as saving money, increasing morale in the workplace, and possibly increasing revenue. Caseworkers will be able to experience life outside of the office and understand how telework will allow them to gain more of their personal life that has been taken away from them. Milestone 1 Company Background ACS, A Xerox Company, boasts as being a global leader in business process, as well as information technology services. This includes finance and accounting, along with transaction processing to IT outsourcing as well as human resources and even customer care. The main mission of ACS is to help each client focus on the core of their business. ACS serves a wide range of industries such as government, communications, manufacturing, retail, financial services, healthcare, education and transportation. The main goal of ACS is to deliver operational excellence. ACS has currently combined sources with Xerox, offering over 140,000 employees in 160 countries. This has helped build global brand strength along with constant dedication to innovation. ACS started in 1988 and has been operational for twenty-three years. Since the day ACS has started, they have kept the focus on putting the client first. ACS at a glance goes on to mention, â€Å"Our clients tell us we’re responsive to business needs, we’re flexible to changing priorities, we’re reliable for delivering results and we act with integrity at all times. † To sum it up, ACS is reliable and honest. ACS will expertly manage your operations, leaving you free to focus on the strategic areas of your business. Business Issues Employees for ACS are experiencing a decrease in their personal lives because of the work constraints put on by upper management. Employees are mandated to work ten hours more each pay period and four hours every other Saturday. We spend at least $5 for lunch each day. With all the mandated overtime employees are unable to shop at the grocery store. Many employees have children at home and have to help with homework or give baths. This leaves employees tired the next day. With gas prices soaring employees can spend anywhere from $50-$100 weekly on gas. Employees also are unable to take care of personal business and sometimes only the only way to complete personal tasks is by requesting time off. After working 7am to 6pm employees feel too tired to walk around the local high school track for daily exercise. These factors combined can essentially cost an organization an indefinable amount of financial resources and, more importantly, human resources . The effect of these problems can lead to low morale and job dissatisfaction. Many studies show the two terms as interchangeable, yet some studies suggest that the two should not be confused with one another. According to The Encyclopedia of Career Development (2006), â€Å"Morale as a construct should not be confused with job satisfaction, although employee satisfaction surveys have served as a surrogate for assessing morale for some time. † Benefits of Solving Problem If staff had the option to telework, management and direct staff will gain great benefits. Telework will allow staff to work at their own pace, while at the same time completing the expected workload. If staff have the ability to work their specified tasks while being able to complete personal tasks this will increase morale and the company would have more satisfied staff. The most important benefit would be the ability to spend more time with the family. Staff will save on the weekly gas and lunch expenses. They will also have the option incorporate morning water aerobics classes into their daily schedule. With the advantage of a flexible schedule staff will be delighted to complete expected workload so that they can continue with the rest of their lives. Instead of being in the office 5 to 7 days out of the week they could work 2 to 3 days out of the week for the clients who want face-to-face assistance and allowing the company to save money since they would not have to pay shelter expenses for the buildings being used to conduct business. Proposed Technology Solution The Insight Technology Solutions website explains, â€Å"Because of the advancements in information systems/technology, software applications, and high speed internet connections, any job that can be executed using a telephone and/or computer can be performed from a home office very effectively. The cloud allows individuals to limit the use of hard drives, USB drives, and etc. Cloud services enable individuals to save information from one computer and pick it on your tablet or mobile device. Cloud computing offers almost everything a company will need to allow employees to telework. According to Wikipedia, â€Å"Cloud computing is a marketing term for technologies that provide computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Emailing and video conferencing enables communication for employees. Allowing employees to keep up with daily updates or requesting assistance from the IT helpdesk. Milestone 2 Detailed Technology Solution The best technology solution for incorporating telework in your business is with cloud computing. This will allow caseworkers to receive work instructions, tasks, and communicate with management and other co-workers away from the office. Management Information Systems Twelfth Edition (Laudon and Laudon p. 70) explains, â€Å"Cloud computing refers to a model of computing that provides access to a shared pool of computing resources (computers, storage, applications, and services), over a network, often the Internet. Cloud computing offers anytime self-service, employees can complete work from anywhere at any time. Employees will also be able to access the network from personal laptops, tablets, or mobile devices. An infinite amount of employees can access the network simultaneously. Resources required can be changed any time due to the demand from t he business. Businesses are only charged for the services that are used. Cloud computing offers 3 different services cloud infrastructure as a service, cloud platform as a service, and cloud software as a service. Cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) enables business to move their applications into the cloud and run information systems. Cloud platform as a service (PaaS) allows businesses to develop applications with services provided from the cloud provider. Cloud software as a service (SaaS) gives the business access to use cloud software for business development. In order for ACS to allow caseworkers to telework, cloud infrastructure as a service should be the cloud service used to allow the highest performance from caseworkers. ACS, a Xerox company, provides Xerox cloud services to businesses so why not use it to its capacity for their own company. Xerox cloud services will allow caseworkers to access systems used to process applications and ongoing cases. With the Xerox cloud (IaaS) caseworkers will have the ability to work away from the office. Iaas allows organizations to outsource equipment that supports daily operations, including software, hardware, servers and networking components. The cloud provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and maintaining the equipment. Now we must focus on technology dealing with voice communication. Caseworkers have to complete interviews over the phone with clients. There are many different communication tools but virtual private networks (VPN) will benefit the company the most. VPN is a private network that provides secure and encrypted communications for large companies at a low cost. Since security is a high priority then VPN will be the best option with confidential client information transmitted over the networks. Two VPN technologies offered by CISCO are site to site VPNs and remote access VPNs. Site to site VPNs provide and Internet based wireless area network to extend resources to main location offices, home offices, and business partners. Using site to site VPNs management will be able to communicate work instructions with caseworkers and management will also be able to monitor daily work activity. Remote access VPNs extend any data, voice, or video communication to a remote desktop. This will come in handy if a caseworker is experiencing difficulty with company software and hardware. IT would be able to diagnose and fix a problem from wherever they are by accessing your computer. Value of this Approach Xerox cloud Iaas will benefit the company in reducing IT costs. Using cloud services and products cost less because you are not charged for consultations or IT staff used to service your software or hardware. These fees are free with the subscription purchased by the cloud service provider. Since Xerox provides the cloud services then there will not be any charges to use cloud services to allow caseworkers to telework. Telework also reduces environmental costs, like saving money on gas or food. With privacy concerns VPN will give the caseworker the ability to contact clients or other workers securely. Caseworkers will be able to make cost saving budgets that can help save money for future vacations or children’s college savings. Business Process Changes Businesses change according to societal trends. The more technology developed the more organizations have to change to keep up with competition. Once ACS realizes that telework can save the organization money, changes will be implemented to accommodate caseworkers to telework. Virtual management will be the most important change process. Caseworkers working in the office now are under supervision from management in the same office. A special team of staff will need to be created to work with the caseworkers’ teleworking. Since caseworkers will not be working in the office all work instructions will be given through email or over the phone. Management will also conduct meetings through conference and video calls instead of meeting in the office or specified locations. Milestone 3 Additional Technology Solutions  Other forms of technology that will be useful in allowing caseworkers to able to telework is desktop virtualization. According to searchvirtualdesktop. techtarget. com, â€Å"Desktop virtualization is the concept of isolating a logical operating system (OS) instance from the client that is used to access it. † Desktop virtualization can work locally and remotely. Of course remote access will be more beneficial for caseworkers. Host-based virtual machines are a model used for desktop virtualization that allows each user to individually connect to laptops or mobile devices hosted in a data center. Management can use desktop virtualization to collect work that needs to be processed and send to caseworkers that are teleworking tasks to complete through the host-based virtual machine. VoIP uses resources to help decrease charges incurred from local and long-distance telephone networks. Management Information Systems Twelfth Edition ( Laudon and Laudon p. 265) explains, â€Å"VoIP can reduce communication and network management costs by 20 to 30 percent. † VoIP signals can be transferred over a corporate network allocated to specific users. Caseworkers can hook the VoIP connection from ACS to their home Internet connection to receive and make calls only pertaining to work. Additional Business Process Changes There are three main systems caseworkers use to complete daily tasks. First there is SMART, which keeps track of tasks completed and tasks needing to be completed according to priority. Then there is FACTS, which keeps track of all the applications submitted and documents that clients return for processing. Finally ICES, which stores all of the client’s information and processes case information. These programs are straight forward and the only changes would be incorporating these websites to work away from the office. We are only allowed access to these programs on office computers. Management will have to allow unrestricted access to these programs to allow caseworkers to be able to work from home. Overall Recommendations There are many different workers for the government sector of ACS. There are clerks who are needed to assist clients that come into the office. There are State managers that are needed in the office to conduct daily business for the offices. There is many other staff that is there to conduct daily business that is needed for offices. Telework is basically recommended for caseworkers because they can complete the same work at home that is done at work. Implementation In order for caseworkers to be able to transition from offices to remote locations caseworkers need to be trained on how to conduct telework away from the office. Caseworkers come in with a mind of reaping all the benefits and are not aware of some issues that can develop from being away from the office for too long. Employees may start to get too comfortable and become lazy leading to a decrease in production. Telework is not for everybody, some employees need that social environment 8 hours a day. Conclusion In conclusion telework is the best option for caseworkers and various other organizations. Telework allows caseworkers to gain flexibility and the organization to save money. As mentioned earlier caseworkers will be able to spend more time with families and organizations will be able to cut back on office space being used. Overall from my general view and the basis of everything discussed in this paper, telework is what the future holds for corporations to keep a competitive edge.