Free Essay Sample: Social Entrepreneurship and Business Management

A social entrepreneur is a person who takes a business approach with the aim of solving social problems affecting the community. Social entrepreneurs are the change representatives for society because they take an opportunity others did not and improve, disseminate and invent new methods to advance sustainable answers to create social value (Defourny and Nyssens, 2008). "The Big Issue" is a street newspaper that is published in four continents, which was founded by Gordon Roddick and John Bird. The paper is written by journalist and published in four continents. The social aspect of The Big Issue Foundation is changing and empowering the lives of poor people through charity and creating an opportunity to them by indirectly employing vendors to sell newspapers and pay themselves out on a 100 percent ratio. The organization seeks to address key issues attached to social and financial exclusion by giving concrete support that can change lives for good. The foundation funds vendors to establish their paths in life and make a better future for themselves and their respective families. Through changing the lives of poor and desolate members of society, The Big Issue is considered as a social enterprise (Catalina, 2013). Additionally, the organization ensures that vendors are meant to save part of their income towards a major goal in life, which they identify. Through this, the organization has been able to change lives of many individuals and families. (https://www.bigissue.org.uk/home)

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Integrity is an important aspect in any business setting, and it is one of the important values to an entrepreneur. "Saint Leo's" core values include integrity, excellence, Community, esteem, personal growth and accountable stewardship. All these aspects make up the core values of Saint Leo University, and all are important in any institution's success (Battilana, 2014). However, integrity is one of the most overriding values of the institution and one that can be used by a business enterprise and entrepreneurs to create a solid financial plan. Integrity is the commitment to providing excellent demands for an organization to deliver on its promises. According to St Leo University, Integrity demands that the faculty and students pledge to be honest, just and consistent with their words and deeds. A business enterprise can apply this value to come up with a business financial plan that is solid and comprehensive. In creating a financial plan, an enterprise needs a meaningful goal to inspire the actions towards the success of the plan (Burfield et al., 2001). In any business or financial goal, aspects of integrity such as honesty and consistency are very crucial. Honest help in creating meaningful and realistic goals, while consistency aids in being earnest and strictly working to achieve the given goal. Additionally, honest is very vital in a business enterprise especially when dealing with money and customers because it creates the authenticity and openness in financial scheduling.

A financial strategy is a complete assessment of the current and forthcoming economic state of a given enterprise. A financial plan helps to set short and long time goals, which maps out the financial future and budget of a given entity (Abor, 2017). In a business setting, a cash budget is an estimation of cash income and expenses over a given period. This budget is created through five basic steps, which include determining the opening balance at the beginning of the fiscal period. After defining the balance, all receipts and expected incomes are added to it. The third step is to deduct the disbursements or the expenditures both fixed and variable expected to be incurred during the period. Fourthly, subtract the expenses from the opening balance to arrive at the excess or deficiency of cash. Lastly, from step four one can determine if the operations will be covered by the available cash or from other sources through excess or deficiency respectively (Lusardi and Mitchell, 2014). The principles of managing the big three of cash management include the control of accounts receivable needs business owners to put in place clear debt collection policies, promptness in sending an invoice and improving the cash flow. In managing the accounts payable, the goal should be to stretch out the creditors without damaging the enterprise's credit rating. This includes authenticating invoices before reimbursing them and taking advantage of cash discounts. Inventory should be handled properly, to avoid unnecessary headaches such as overstocking and understocking (Brealey et al., 2012). Therefore, the management must set stock levels according to the company's operations, which will include realistic minimum and maximum stock levels. Overstocking will tie the business's finances, and understocking will cause a loss in customers.

References

Abor, J. Y. (2017). Financial Planning and Forecasting. In Entrepreneurial Finance for MSMEs (pp. 199-224). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Battilana, J., & Lee, M. (2014). Advancing research on hybrid organizing-Insights from the study of social enterprises. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 397-441.

Brealey, R. A., Myers, S. C., Allen, F., & Mohanty, P. (2012). Principles of corporate finance. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

Burfield, E. G., Chang, C. C., Drissel, M., Eichler, M., Garrett, R., Groat, R., ... & Rapp, P. R. (2001). U.S. Patent No. 6,298,334. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Catalina, I. C. (2013). Social Enterprise-The Engine Of Social Entrepreneurship. Managerial Challenges of the Contemporary Society. Proceedings, 5, 77.

Defourny, J., & Nyssens, M. (2008). Social enterprise in Europe: recent trends and developments. Social enterprise journal, 4(3), 202-228.

Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2014). The economic importance of financial literacy: Theory and evidence. Journal of economic literature, 52(1), 5-44.