Analysis Of Factors Influencing The Development Of Social Enterprises

The traditional non-profit organizations and traditional business organizations have been developing for a long time. Nowadays, the social environment which they are faced with is becoming more and more complicated. And there are various kinds of social problems which both individuals and organizations have to deal with at the same time. Therefore, there is urgent necessity to improve the organizations’ capability and efficiency. Then the organization could be able to achieve sustainable development. Under this situation, the social enterprise appears as an innovative mixture. To do some research on the development of domestic social enterprises has a positive and practical significance. Through the research process, we could be able to take a review on the past situations, as well as to summarize the experiences. Furthermore, we could be able to provide some new ideas and new methods to help the social enterprises develop into a better situation with the guidance of the theory.After introducing the significance of this research, this paper takes a review on the researches about the social enterprises. Those researches were done by both domestic and foreign scholars. The concept of "social enterprise" originates from western countries. And the cognition of social enterprise was introduced into China in early years of this century. The domestic social enterprises began to develop since then. In this paper, the definition of "social enterprise" refers to the particular sort of social organizations which regards achieving social goals as the first priority, and of course focusing on economic goals at the same time. Meanwhile, a single social enterprise is operated by related staff as a company, which means the social enterprise may participate in some particular kinds of business activities. After taking a review on the researches done by other scholars, we are able to draw a conclusion that although apparently the scholars could not find a specific definition of social enterprise which could be accepted by everyone, quite a few characteristics of social enterprises have been mentioned widely. These characteristics of social enterprises include that social enterprise is a kind of innovative mixture managing to achieve both social and economic goals. Social enterprises operate business activities while shouldering social missions. During the daily operation of a social enterprise, its staff has to deal with both social goals and economic goals. Social enterprises can be classified into several kinds according to the balance status of social goals and economic goals. When we want to discuss the development status of foreign social enterprises, Britain would the first country on the list. This paper introduces the development of social enterprises in Britain briefly. And when we mention the development of domestic social enterprises, although there have been similar organizations like "social welfare enterprises" and "private non enterprise units" in China, "social enterprise" still has not been legally defined in our country. Even though those organizations have been existed for years and some of them actually operate just like a social enterprise. Since the concept of social enterprise was introduced into China, the practice of social enterprises and the theoretical researches on social enterprises have been developing as well. Through the review on academic researches on social enterprises, we can find out that the researches in this field are still insufficient comparing to the practical experiences and theoretical need of domestic social enterprises. There is still some room for improvement both in the depth and breadth of related researches. For instance, we can conduct some case studies to make comprehensive insight into the development of social enterprises.This study adopts qualitative research method. During the investigation, this study specifically uses case studies to collect data about social enterprises. The data was collected through field investigations of particular social enterprise in the city of Nanjing, Hangzhou and Shanghai. At the same time, depth interviews were made with the leaders of those organizations. By carrying out this kind of investigation, we could know more about the development process of social enterprises as well as some common problems which social enterprises might be faced with and the experience in coping with those problems. In the data analysis part of this paper, the development process and present situation of "Green Zhejiang" were discussed. The analysis includes both internal and external factors which may influence the development of a particular social enterprise. Those factors are the organization’s origin and mission, the legal affairs which the organization has to deal with, the personnel status of the organization, the operation ability of organization, the relationship between economic goals and social goals, and influences of policies and other enterprises. Each of these factors plays a specific role during the development process of "Green Zhejiang". Based on the analysis above, this study suggests four reasons how "Green Zhejiang" achieves sustainable development. First, social enterprises should take the social demands as the guidance. Second, when mentioning the relationship between social goals and economic goals, the social enterprise should always make sure that social goals take priority over economic goals. Third, the staff members in social enterprises should pay more attention to the construction of internal rules and regulations. Fourth, the social service offered by the social enterprises should meet the organizations’ abilities. In addition, this study suggests further discussion in the following aspects:in the legal level, specific "social enterprise" category should be made, so as to guarantee the development of social enterprises; the recruitment of social enterprise should be enhanced with the help of college students and social enterprises staff members; whether the services provided by social enterprises is to help the people to meet basic needs or high level needs, they should meet the organization’s ability and resources which the organization could control; the social enterprises should keep a calm attitude towards the government and its policies. At the end of this paper, statement is issued that since this study mainly discusses the situation of "Green Zhejiang" as a case, this research inevitably has deficiency in the aspects of extension and promotion. Further study should be made to improve the study on social enterprise.