TITLE:
Social Purpose Enterprises: Case Studies for Social Change
AUTHOR: Jack Quarter, Sherida Ryan, and Andrea Chan
PUBLISHER: Toronto, ON:
University of Toronto, 2014, (336 pages)
Is money the sole purpose for businesses? What about organizations that not only make money but serves a social purpose? Noticing that the latter are becoming more prominent in society, three Canadian researchers from the University of Toronto seek to find out more about them through three fundamental questions.
- How these businesses impact their employees to independent serve society?
- How the businesses impact shareholders?
- What are the challenges these businesses have?
Together with many other contributors, the authors ponder many things. How to measure impact? Is efficiency the best criterion? What about effectiveness? Looking at their own research as well as other works from around the world, the authors are quite thorough in their probe. They look at many angles and contexts surrounding social enterprises.
- Businesses that engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) [examples: Ben & Jerry's and Body Shop]
- social businesses [example: Grameen Bank founded by Muhammad Yunus]
- Social businesses earning income for a non-profit [examples: Habitat for Humanity; Salvation Army; University of Toronto Press]
- Social business receiving support from non-profit [examples: United Way; Raging Spoon; Abel Enterprises; Crazy Cooks]
