RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

How to create a social enterprise: a case study 223
ernment. This idea was presented for three other non-profit organisations operating with the
rehabilitees. They agreed gladly with the idea and formed so called “pre-board”, that would
be the steering group of the process.
The community of rehabilitees possess different competencies and skills, “from a grave
digger to a lawyer”. For the new venture, the business plan had not been drafted, the legal
form of venture was not decided nor were there any concrete business ideas for the activity.
In order to generate the business ideas and to find the potential from the whole community,
it was decided that an idea generation workshops would be implemented in collaboration
between the community and researchers/facilitators. The process was called ‘Bee of communal
economy’ and it is illustrated in figure 2. Business ideas would be collected through cocreation
and co-learning to find out about what services and products the social enterprise
could offer.
The idea generation sessions were planned and facilitated by a researcher. The starting
point of the idea generation was the capabilities and skills of individuals in the community,
instead of the market opportunities or any other outside trigger. The facilitation focused on
finding participants’ strengths and to acknowledge meaningful experiences of work. The
philosophies of improvisational theatre as well as playfulness and meditation awareness were
used as methods of creation in the workshops.
Four workshops were organized in each of these four organisations. Workshop participants,
i.e., rehabilitees, their relatives and social workers, were mainly from these four partner
organizations. Workshops were open and targeted at anyone interested. Altogether about
140 people participated in the workshops – about 120 rehabilitees and 20 social workers.
More than 100 business ideas were created in four open idea generation workshops. After
the idea generation workshops, two business idea concepts were selected by the pre-board
for further development. The first idea concerned a new social service and the second idea
was built around ICT-services. The latter one however did not reach enough interest and enthusiasm
among the community nor resources so that the development work would have continued.
The social service idea was in the other hand developed further, because there was
interest in the community and the idea served the community so well. In order to develop
the concept further, a new development team was recruited from the rehabilitees.
The social service concept was piloted together with local public mental healthcare unit.
The pilot was also evaluated and results were very positive and encouraging showing that
there were clear benefits for all stakeholders: the patients, the local mental healthcare unit
and the employed rehabilitees. Currently, the service is ready to be commercialized and negotiations
ongoing. The development process concerns two distinct business opportunities and
neither of these is enough for the establishment of a new firm as such. In terms of institutionalization,
there are two alternatives: The first one would be joining a local cooperative
and thus the process would not lead to the emergence of a new organization. The second alternative
would be to run the service as part of the focal organization. In this case, the company
would be created and it would be strongly supported by the Foundation A.