Introduction
This Journal aims at exploring the idea of opportunity as it regards to social entrepreneurship process. The article brings out this concept by first explaining the meaning of social entrepreneurship. To precisely define the meaning, the article explains a scenario where 13 families in Denmark moved into small trailers as they built their own homes from scratch. To do this, the families recycled unprocessed materials and used bricks or timber to come up with the houses. It therefore came to understanding the social entrepreneurs focus on enhancing social value rather than making profit. They use opportunities to overcome social and environmental problems that surround the community at large. As a result, many scholars have used the concept of opportunity to describe the social entrepreneurship process. The paper thus strongly aims at understanding social entrepreneurship and the role played by opportunities to the social entrepreneurship process. This view has been supported by Korsgaard (2011).
The journal brings the relationship between opportunity and social responsibility by conducting a single case study for a community in Denmark. The case study used interviews, documents and television programs to obtain data. The findings of the case study clearly show that opportunity takes a number of various forms in the process. Such forms come to existence due to continuous mobilization of actors. As a result, a model of social entrepreneurship process is proposed which is driven by mobilization and transformation.
Faced by social and environmental problems, a situation in which actors and resources become mobilized help to get the ends and means that the social entrepreneurs use in order to solve the underlying problems. The ends and means that arise in this case can be said to be opportunities. The study that comes to discover that social entrepreneur is not only the one, who discovers, evaluates and exploits opportunities rather he or she is the one who actively mobilises in order to change external circumstances. It therefore goes without saying that for social entrepreneurs who are actively practising their role, the opportunity concept focuses and emphasizes more on development of skills and the ways of thinking. This is to mean that opportunities come as a result of integrating various skills and thinking critically.
Learning points
The study impels the reader to learn various points with respect to the relation between opportunity and social entrepreneurship process. First, the case study helps us to learn the fact that social entrepreneurship is different from business entrepreneurship in that it focuses on social value rather than making profit. Social entrepreneurship is thus focuses on solving social and environmental problems rather than financial problem.
In addition, the case study helps us learn the fact that social entrepreneurs mobilize resources which is a move from discovering, evaluating and evaluating the available resources. This brings to our understanding that opportunities play a great role in helping us understand the concept of social entrepreneurship. The concept of opportunity that arises when one focuses on a set of skills and various ways of thinking.
Critical analysis - your point, how you see things, your opinion
The study impels me to have an opinion that is closely related to the issues discussed in the study. In my opinion I strongly agree with the fact that the concept of opportunity plays a great role in helping people understand the social entrepreneurship process. The great concern should be assisting the social entrepreneurs to focus much on creating opportunities to help them in solving the underlying social issues. The best way of discovery the available opportunities within a social entrepreneurship setting is to focus much on resource mobilization. Within this focus, the entrepreneurship should concentrate on discovering the opportunities, evaluating them and exploiting them with the aim of solving social issues.
On the other hand, social entrepreneurs should also consider the element of resource transformation. Transformation thus impels the social entrepreneurs to go beyond the underlying opportunities by creating external circumstances to help them develop opportunities. This will help the shift from the simple way of discovering, evaluating and exploiting opportunities. This is to mean that the traditional analytical skills that play a role in helping social entrepreneurs to discover opportunities will be substituted with skills and mindsets that focus at creativity, imagination and collaboration.
Practical Implication/Implementation
This case study impels us to use the concept of opportunity in solving the ever challenging social and environmental problems. It is a great concern as a social entrepreneur to actively create external circumstance when faced by a social and environmental issue rather than taking advantage of the available opportunities. Therefore, it is important for social entrepreneurs to focus more on different skills and various ways of thinking in order to overcome any social issue that come their way.
Conclusion
Social entrepreneurship plays a great role towards helping people to solve social and environmental issues by creating external circumstances. The paper clearly brings to the attention of the learners the great difference between social entrepreneurship and business entrepreneurship. Korsgaard (2011) in his research found that the concept of opportunity plays a great role towards helping people understand social entrepreneurship process. It is true that in order to solve social issues it’s important for an entrepreneur to focus on the concept of opportunity. However, it is important for one to go a mile further to create external circumstances rather than using the available opportunities to solve the problem. The debate as to whether and opportunity is discovered or created helps us dig much about the role of opportunity concept on social entrepreneurship process. Therefore, the success of social entrepreneurship process is driven by resource mobilization and transformation. Opportunities are created from external circumstances rather they are not discovered.
Introduction
This case focuses on determining the applicability and usefulness of business models in enhancing international entrepreneurship. It puts more emphasis on ideas about value formation and exchange within the companies’ framework. IE research reveals that the success of entrepreneur internationalization is not based on owning the business rather it is subject to the control availed by the business actors. Moving globally is a sure way of staying competitive hence able to promote value chain in the entire business. Gathering information from similar companies is important for an international entrepreneurship since it helps in discovering various insights that play a role in enhancing business value.
Liisa-Maija etal (2011) reveals that, in order to determine the interactions between the business models and international entrepreneurship, the article uses a cross case study data collection and analysis on three companies which met various characteristics. The three companies analysed were Alpha, Beta and Gamma which give solutions into information and communication technology. In order to bring forth the issue of business model, the studies took consideration product concept, the history of internationalization, creation of customer value and the way customers buy solutions.
The finding of the cross case study clearly indicated that although in most cases the business models of similar companies tend to be similar, there is a great difference on how they perform their activities and form the value. The findings also showed that many entrepreneurship businesses tend to focus more on value creation to the end customer hence neglecting the value for the partners who play a vital role in enhancing the value formation of the end customer. The article comes to conclude that the business model concept play a great role in assisting the international entrepreneurships to examine their operation by focusing on value creation.
Learning points
The study presents various points of concern that enable entrepreneurships learn about their value formation. First, the article clearly reveals that business models play a very important role in helping the international entrepreneurship to analyse their business operations. In such a case, the business models bring about the sense of value creation which international entrepreneurships use to evaluate their operations.
In addition, the article brings to our attention the fact that various entrepreneurships with the similar business models differ in their activities and value formation. This is to mean that the way of performing activities and integrating the other parts of the business play a great role in determining the value of the business. For instance, an entrepreneurship that integrates its internal and external business environment properly ends up realizing high value in its business operations.
Furthermore, the article also presents us with a fact that most entrepreneurships focus on delivering quality products and services to their end customer. However they fail to give credit to the other partners who have dedicated their efforts to the business. It is important to put all business factors under consideration in order to enable an entrepreneurship create more value. The intermediate partners within any given business are very important since they are the main drivers of success.
Critical analysis - your point, how you see things, your opinion
Building insights from the study I tend to have a feeling that business models are major drive towards international entrepreneurship value creation. Thus the degree to which international entrepreneurship succeeds in forming value in its business depends on the strength of the business models control. When business focuses on internalization then it subjects its goals towards remaining competitive and enhancing value in its operations. In actual sense, the concept of the business model is very vital in helping businesses to plan various strategies of exploiting the international opportunities that may help them in enhancing their value creation. Therefore, it is important for any business that needs to succeed in its operations to integrate a variety of actors in order to foster value formation. Such actors may include financiers, customers, society, creditors and suppliers among many others.
Proper integration of the business models may help a business to get access to market, potential customers and partner information that may be very important in enhancing value creation. Any business that focuses on venturing new international markets should have enough information about the market, competitors and customer information. With such information, the business is able to plan well and develop strategies to may help it to remain unique hence forming value in its business internationally.
Practical Implication/Implementation
Focusing much on the idea of business models and international entrepreneurship, the study reveals that entrepreneurships may compare their businesses with those of the other companies in the same industry in order to gain information on how the other companies apply the business models to enhance success in their companies. Through bench management companies are able to exchange values which help them to develop value into their businesses. Therefore, it goes without saying that the managers of international entrepreneurships should focus on promoting value within the businesses by describing and analysing their business model. The analysis should consider the whole value chain from the perspective of value exchange that arises from learning from other business. This will play an important role in gaining insights that are vital for business growth and development.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is true that business models and international entrepreneurship relations have great influence on the value creation. Although many businesses fail to meet their targets due to increase inefficiency, building a strong relationship between the business models and the international entrepreneurship may play a great role towards promoting value formation. Therefore, it is important for the international entrepreneurship to use the business models properly in order to create more value. Besides, it is important to integrate strategies that favour all the actors that lead to creation of business value. This is to mean that it is not good enough for businesses to have great concern on the end customer alone rather they should also have concern on other stakeholders such suppliers, financiers, shareholders among many others. Value creation is subject to the efficiency that arises due to proper integration of business models.
Reference List
Korsgaard, S., 2011. Opportunity formation in social entrepreneurship. Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 5(4), Pp 265- 295.
Liisa-Maija, S., Sami S., Niina., and Taina E., 2011. Value creation of an internationalizing entrepreneurial firm. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 18(3), pp. 556-570.
