Rebekka Zuckermann Kristiansen's Blog

Following the Comm 101  lecture featuring Janice Cheam, Energy Aware‘s founder and CEO, a bit of a discussion ensued among my friends – is society wrong in consistently viewing the average business as inconsiderate of the surroundings? Yes of course, the stereotype is generally wrong – as most stereotypes tend to be – and as social enterprise is entering the arena, what will happen to the profit-maximizing business world of today? I’m not directly linking Janice Cheam’s visiting lecture to social enterprise, but I find that her approachable nature showed us a different profile of a CEO.

Social Enterprise – Cooperation

In terms of social enterprise, where the goal is to apply business thinking to ultimately increase social (human or environmental) prosperity rather than increase shareholder profit, it’s a stretch to state that many businesses are fulfilling the requirements to be such an enterprise. To be a social entrepeneur there are many requirements, and different sources, like our class’ preparation read of J. Gregory Dees take on social enterpeneurship, state different “criteria”. Though if every now and then a company has a CEO like Janice Chem, we may begin to wonder if not a shift is occurring in the business world today – is a social concience being born?