Critically consider the challenges and opportunities that social and Essay

Critically consider the challenges and opportunities that social and community enterprises face in their chase to affect social change - Essay Example In contrast to other socially/community-oriented organizations, social enterprise combines two important aspects: entrepreneurship and social-orientation. Even though the concept of social entrepreneurship is a relatively new, the number of social enterprises has increased substantially during the past decades (Nkala, 2009). Today there exist both threats and opportunities that social enterprises face with. The aim of this paper is to analyze what challenges and opportunities social and community enterprises face in their chase to affect social change. There exist many different interpretations of the concept of â€Å"social entrepreneurship†. Despite the variety of definitions of the term of social entrepreneurship, some researchers believe that more unified definition is still to be developed (Short, Moss, and Lumpkin, 2009). Bornstein and Davis (2010) define it is a process by which individuals transform or create institutions in order to solve or help to solve various social problems, including poverty, illiteracy, illness, environmental destruction, corruption, and human rights abuses. Thus, these organizations aim to improve life for many people and broader society. In order to achieve their mission, social enterprises undertake various commercial activities. Thus, the value of social enterprise is measured not only in terms of its contribution to social, environmental, or cultural life but also in terms of its financial sustainability (Social traders, 2011). There are identified three major categories of motivations for establishment of social enterprise. These categories include: employment; service innovation, and income generation. In terms of employment motivation, social enterprises provide employment opportunities, support and training for marginalized groups. These enterprises are also motivated by an opportunity to maintain or create services, which enable to satisfy economic or