Social Enterprise Phenomenon and Organization

The social enterprise phenomenon has seen a worldwide proliferation over the last decade. Social enterprises are widely defined as the use of market-based approaches that are nongovernmental to solve social issues. In particular, social enterprises are sources of revenues for various types of socially oriented activities and businesses. They significantly contribute to the long-term sustainability and self-sufficiency of organizations usually involved in various charitable activities. The paper focuses on the global proliferation of the social enterprise phenomenon over the last ten years and the opportunities and challenges faced by social enterprise organizations by using practical examples.
Janelle Kerlin focuses on seven regions that have been shaped by the global emergence and proliferation of social enterprises. These areas include Japan, Argentina, Western Europe, the United States of America (USA), East-Central Europe, Southeast Asia, and Zambia and Zimbabwe (Kerlin, 2020). The Internet has significantly contributed to the worldwide proliferation of the social enterprise phenomenon. Across different parts of the world, the primary idea of revenue generation emanating from charitable activities has been the norm. Even existing organizations are adopting the strategy to maximize revenue generation. For example, organizations are being opened in different fields, such as social supermarkets, textbooks for social change, sustainable water, micro-lending, social crowdfunding, and micro-power generation. Furthermore, social entrepreneurship has facilitated the accomplishments of different organizations involved in innovation in the international market.
The primary opportunity of social enterprise organizations is that they are focused on achieving unmet environmental or social issues via a market-driven approach. Nardia Haigh and Andrew Hoffman call these types of businesses hybrid organizations. In that light, social enterprise organizations exist between for-profit and non-profit firms (Haigh & Hoffman, 2012). They adopt environmental or social missions, which enable them to generate profits...