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Essay: Social Economy

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  • Subject area(s): Business essays
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  • Published: 21 June 2012*
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  • Words: 1,070 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 5 (approx)

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Social Economy

From the early rise of humanity business has been one of the most important aspect for any culture or civilization, from bargaining and trade, to the industrial revolution down to our current time. And each era was dominated by a particular pattern or a way of doing business, as we evolved so did our awareness to our surrounding and how we affect it so companies and corporation all around the world started to care not purely on profit for their shareholders but how they effected the population the environment the culture as a hall, which in its turn led to what is currently known as ‘social economy’.

‘The social economy phenomena created two types of corporation, first the social kind which are either non-profit or for profit and the goal of their corporations is to improve humanity as much as possible and to help sustain a clean and healthy environment even if this goal overlaps with the goal of making as much profit as possible. ‘Many commercial enterprises would consider themselves to have social objectives, but commitment to these objectives is motivated by the perception that such commitment will ultimately make the enterprise more financially valuable. Social enterprises differ in that, inversely, they do not aim to offer any benefit to their investors, except where they believe that doing so will ultimately further their capacity to realize their social and environmental goals’.

‘ Historically the concept of social enterprises has been around for some time now under different names and different tendencies. The earliest use of the social enterprise concept was in 1978 England in ‘Beechwood College’ where the professors there helped workers to develop social auditing ‘. In the US, the work of ASHOKA was picked up at Harvard, Stanford and Princeton University, and each made contributions to the development of the field of social entrepreneurship through project initiatives and publications’.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) also known as corporate conscience, social performance, or sustainable responsible businesses is a form of corporate restraints which became integrated in the core of the business model. It allows corporation to monitor and control all aspects of the business, by respecting norms and ensuring the application of the laws set by the state, it embraces responsibility for the company’s actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders.

As for any business method of functioning there are advantages and disadvantages and they defer depending on how corporation deal with their micro/macro environment. According to Rodney Schwartz some of the advantages of the social enterprise is the ability to raise capital at below market rates, labor costs below average (because workers are willing to work for below average to support the values of the social enterprise), other benefits a wider fane base and endorsement of the product or services of these corporation by the state and the population as a whole. People are more socially aware and will incorporate a part of their purchasing decision on the moral fiber of the company, one famous example is Nike, Nike which is one of the biggest retailers of sports goods and sportswear in the world had a huge blow after the scandal of outsourcing there production line to third world countries where there products were manufactured in sweatshops’.

As for the exact definition of the phrase corporate citizenship: it is the ‘The extent to which businesses are socially responsible for meeting legal, ethical and economic responsibilities placed on them by shareholders. The aim is for businesses to create higher standards of living and quality of life in the communities in which they operate, while still preserving profitability for stakeholders’.

Green technologies, in all aspects of innovation are the subjects of most of the recent researches, since it serves two very important aspects ‘ecological modernization, competitiveness’. Current researches are extending to cover all aspects of institutional innovation. Environmental innovation is surrounding us more and more with each passing day and when it’s viewed from an environmental perspective; it’s difficult not to embrace it. Do to this development; the research community is developing sophisticated new methods for measuring sustainability and for carrying out integrated environmental assessment. Environmental problems, more primarily global warming have to require new methods of response, they have a serious effect on the global environment, on with the survival of all humankind depends, and call for a re-examination of civilization as we know it ‘ business, consumers and the government must work together continuously and comprehensively to build an environmental-friendly socio-economic structure’ the need for technological responses and international initiatives.
Such green agendas, which are disseminated by virtually all established institutions in Europe and the world, increasingly with reference to global security, mean in political and social terms, that threats usually benefit specific marketing solutions, without a solution already being at hand, be these nuclear power, solar energy, energy efficiency or subsidies for farmers growing wood for power stations, problems tend to be ignored by political systems.
Research into how scientific, commercial and political elites use scientific evidence and promise future findings in the building of international and national environmental regimes raises the question of whether environmentalism, especially eco-alarmism, has become the ideological motor of ‘northern’ innovation and accumulation, that is of ecological modernization, while also being used, by others, as a tool of protectionism and eco-colonialism in the south. Groups that benefit from both developments can be identified as a driving force behind the construction of degrading global environmental threats. Since the late 1970s, one may observe the emergence of increasingly wealthy and professional, usually Us-based, environmental research organizations and consultancies which also act as pressure groups. They practice advocacy and are at home in centres or institutes for environmental law, environmental science, conservation bodies and above all, in the Us-based environmental defense.
Environmental consultancies and research bodies are sprouting like mushrooms. Eco-alarmists advise the insurance industry, inviting them to raise premiums on precautionary grounds. Legal firms are expanding into environmental consultancy litigation, and lobbying. Consultancies and expensive commercial conferences are equally flourishing in the wake of environmental directives, targets, and statues devised by national and international bureaucracies under pressure from politicians and lobbies. Treasuries are greening so that they may impose taxes in energy and road use without having to ask parliamentary policies, of the marketing enterprise and professional regulation.

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