Northumbria University, City Campus East - Room 403
Tuesday
October 29
Dr Rachel Dunston &
Dr Adrain Small, Northumbria University
Aiding Social Enterprises: A Second Order Cybernetics
Perspective
Social Enterprises have special needs in terms of business
support. Their social impact orientation can conflict with their need to be
financially viable and ‘make money’. Support agencies do not appear to
appreciate this situation with social enterprises feeling left in a quandary.
This can lead to an identity crisis. The challenge is to establish how this can
be resolved. This can be viewed as a complex problem as it involves different
stakeholders with a vested interest in the success of social enterprises and
that there is ambiguity and uncertainty about how to handle. Consequently, a
Problem Structuring Method (VIPLAN Methodology (VM)) is used in a pilot
workshop setting to guide a small group of individuals, each representing a
Social Enterprise in the NE of England, to explore the issues they face and
establish a course of action to address a prioritised defined problem. The
workshop was followed up three months later with individual interviews to
examine the impact of the workshop upon their Social Enterprise activities. The
findings from this pilot study demonstrated that the use of the VM was
successful in generating useful change.
About the Speakers:
Adrian is an Associate Professor of Operations Management
and the research group lead for the Decision-Making research group within
Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University. His main research activities
are focused around the areas of process improvement, continuous improvement,
Lean and Lean thinking in both manufacturing and service contexts. Adrian also
undertakes research in Problem Structuring Methods (PSM), Digitalization,
Industry 4.0, Resilience and Geopolitics
Rebecca is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship,
Innovation and Strategy within Newcastle Business School. She is the module
tutor for the Undergraduate Business Consultancy Project within the Business
Clinic. Rebecca's main research focus and interests are social entrepreneurs,
understanding their wider ecosystems and how business support can be better
tailored to their needs. From a teaching and learning perspective, experiential
learning is a particular focus, how it can be embedded successfully and the
expectations which students and academics have of it.
