An interesting way to define social entrepreneurship.

After learning that a social entrepreneur is someone who uses business skills to create and manage a business with the objective to solve a social problem, I began to wonder about the inner workings of a social enterprise. Nicola Brookes in her blog “What Defines a Social Entrepreneur?” talks about Jamie Oliver who created a social enterprise called Fifteen, a chain of restaurants that trains young people to become qualified chefs through an Apprentice Program.

Brookes mentions that the profits of the restaurants goes back into the community. However, this makes me wonder if social entrepreneurs take any profits for him or herself and if they do, do they advertise it? Its probable that social entrepreneurs use the objective of societal change as a point of difference that attracts sympathetic consumers to their product or service, thus being the driving force of profits. Similarly, should people of non-profit organizations, such as charities, be paid out of the pockets of generous donators? I find it interesting to think about this and relate it to different social enterprises and non-profit organizations. I think people often do not ask these questions because they feel wrongful to doubt the intentions of a person who is working to make a change.

Employees are a company’s most valuable asset. Without employees, companies are unable to carry out their business. There would be no one managing, no one to manage, and there will be no products or services being created and therefore no profit. In class, we discussed why employees are not included on the balance sheet under assets of a company. Since people are not legally owned by the company, they cannot be an asset, unlike a piece of equipment for example. In the article “Are you an asset to your company?” by John W. Schoen, he points out the same reasoning as we did in class: a company does not own its employees even if they are bound by a legal contract.

I think it would be hard to establish a standard way of accounting for an employee under assets.  Assigning a value to different individuals will be challenging. What makes one individual more valuable than the next? Would you depreciate people on the balance sheet as a person ages like you would with other fixed assets? With these questions in mind, I don’t think there will ever be a standard way to measure employees simply because how different people are.

In Maair Ali’s blog “Politics and Businesses,” he gives a great example of how governments can greatly effect how a business operates. Ali says that “businesses are hugely impacted by the political scenario in the country or market.” To add to his statement, politics and the government are also hugely impacted by businesses that operate in their country. Take for example the article “Businesses threaten to withdraw investment if Government does not go green enough” in The Telegraph. This British newspaper explains how seven major British electricity and nuclear technology firms threaten to back out in future investments with the government if the government doesn’t change its environmental agenda. What’s at stake? Hundreds of million pounds of investment as well as thousands of jobs in the UK. It is evident the extent in which businesses have power over the government and the economy. Since businesses and politics are so dependent on one another, both parties need to see the importance of compromising. One day it could be the business threatening the government and the next it could be the other way around which is why they must be strategically work with the other party to fulfill their own agendas.

ICBC, a big bully?

My uncle recently told me about how he took someone to court over a car accident. A few years ago, when my uncle was hit by another car, the other driver admitted that he was at fault but later gave a false statement of events to ICBC. In response to the conflicting stories, ICBC declared they were both at fault and would have to individually pay for their own damages.

On Bronson Jones & Company LLP’s website, it explains ICBC adjusters’ main purpose which is “assigning blame and minimizing claims costs.” In my uncle’s case, ICBC refused to re-examine both cars for better evidence in order to assign fault to someone as it would save them money for having to assess the cars and to pay for the damages of the innocent party. In addition, ICBC provided a lawyer for the accused but did not provide one for my uncle. This example questions ICBC’s ethics. Since ICBC represents both parties in an accident, they are always in a conflict of interest however they must use their discretion to handle the dilemma. Though there is not a clear solution, ICBC should act in fairness instead focusing on cost-minizming goals.