Doing Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Northampton

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Thinking about SE

• Think about – your resources– the marketplace– peoples’ needs, and how they are linked

• Consider – your motivations for doing this– the complexity of social problems– the model of social change

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Planning SE

• Legal forms and composite forms• How social is the planned social enterprise?

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Discover orConstruct

Marketplace

RES

OU

RCES

SOM

EON

ES N

EED

S

Customers

Clients

SkillsExperienceMoneyTime

Yours

Others

© Tim Curtis 2007

Starting Out

Complex Social Problems

Social Enterprise is not just about the enterprise bit- we need to

understand the social problem first

"Every problem interacts with other problems and is therefore part of a set of interrelated problems, a system of problems…. I choose to call such a system

a mess”. Ackhoff (1974)

“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be

undecided about them.” Laurence J. Peter

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Theory of Change

Problems: linear, causal, ignores the complexity of the problem

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More complex

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Wicked Issues

• The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.

• Wicked problems have no stopping rule.• Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.• Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.• Every solution to a wicked problem is a 'one shot operation'• Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.

• Horst & Webber (1984)• Conklin (2005)

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Rich pictures to express complexity

http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/

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What’s your motivation?

© Tim Curtis 2007

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What’s your motivation?

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Essential Ingredients

© Tim Curtis 2007

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Competition

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Legal toolkit

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How social is this plan?

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People

• Prof Simon Denny, NBS Director of Social Enterprise

• Tim Curtis, SoH, Ambassador for Social Entrepreneurship

• Wray Irwin, Director of Social Enterprise Development

• Chris Durkin, Social Sciences, Northampton Institute for Urban Affairs

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Reading material

• Ridley-Duff, R & Bull, M (2011) Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice. Sage. London

• Gunn, R & Durkin, C (2010) Social Entrepreneurship: a Skills Approach. Policy Press. Bristol

• http://unltdworld.com/hefce

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References

• Rittel, Horst, and Melvin Webber; "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning," pp. 155–169, Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc., Amsterdam, 1973. [Reprinted in N. Cross (ed.), Developments in Design Methodology, J. Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1984, pp. 135–144.],

• Conklin, Jeff; "Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems," Wiley; 1st edition, 18 November 2005

• Ackoff, Russell, "Systems, Messes, and Interactive Planning" Portions of Chapters I and 2 of Redesigning the Future. New York/London: Wiley, 1974

• Checkland, Peter B. and Scholes, J. Soft Systems Methodology in Action, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1990