MA Social Entrepreneurship

This module will introduce you to the key elements of the academic study of social enterprise together with the central legal, financial and managerial practical issues for social enterprises.

The academic study of social enterprise is emerging within a variety of parent disciplines – principally business and management studies, especially entrepreneurship studies, but with significant contributions from a wide variety of disciplines:- cultural studies; sociology; voluntary sector studies; studies of the cooperative and mutual sectors; development studies; economics and investment management.

This module will guide you through the complex world of interlocking and competing approaches and perspectives, at the same time as equipping them with essential insights into the practice of social entrepreneurship.

This module will introduce students to a range of business modelling tools, and provide insight in to the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and enterprises. The module has evolved from NESTA’s Creative Pioneer Programme and will use the Modelling Techniques that were designed and have evolved from The Academy and Insight Out which provide approaches to commercialising creativity.

It will critically review the key characteristics of successful enterprises, entrepreneurs and leaders, within the cultural and more commercially focused creative industries. It will look at the range of business models that exist and review how best to build a financially sustainable organisation.

Students will be introduced to a range of techniques:

1. Relationship Modelling – this will assist students to understand the range of business models in the creative industries, and to create the most appropriate route to market; it will consider the relationship that the originator of the creative idea has to the production, distribution and the audience/customer/client; it uncovers the student’s relationship to “reward”.

2. Evidence Modelling – this model uses Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad Model to review the likely impact of the idea; it helps makes the enterprise tangible and to ensure that the entrepreneur remains in control of the effects of their ideas. Using the modelling technique helps students to articulate their values and the benefits of their ideas.

3. Blueprint Modelling – an approach to creating an operating plan which will move their idea to market, articulating all of the activities and responsibilities required.
Consequence Modelling – using all of the knowledge from the modelling techniques, this will uncover the financial consequences of the decisions made. It will introduce them to basic financial modelling concepts, and ensure they are comfortable with the financial language of creative entrepreneurs.

In this module, you'll explore social enterprise through two subject areas. These are analytical and policy framework, and sustainable development.

In analytical and policy frameworks, you'll examine analytical perspectives on the institutional factors supporting the emergence of social enterprises and the related social policies. You'll focus on the context of deep and extensive global shifts in the balances between the public, private and third sectors of economy/society, and accompanying legislative change with a particular emphasis on UK changes in health and social care and social value regulation. There will also be a focus on a number of advanced practical issues in the development and management of social enterprises such as marketing and sector-specific strategies. 

In sustainable development, you'll focus on the different dynamics in developed versus developing economy contexts, this will explore the variety of different approaches being taken to deploy social enterprise and similar models in order to meet the sustainable development goals. You'll explore broader initiatives in the Global South, such as fostering the Social and Solidarity Economy and implementing alternatives to traditional economic development.

The module will introduce you to a number of methods for calculating the Social Return on Investment as well as giving them an opportunity to put an approach into practice. Articulating and calculating the return made on any form of investment in a social enterprise or project is increasingly important and a range of mechanisms have been developed by organisations such as the New Economics Foundation to predict and measure social returns on investment. After reviewing some of the common measurement techniques, you'll undertake a live project or work in a social enterprise, using this experience to create a report on the social return on the investments made into the work delivered.

The Dissertation is an extended piece of written work on a research topic of your choice. The dissertation comprises a critical review of the literature and/or original analysis of documentary and/or other evidence on a chosen topic within the fields of the programme.   

The dissertation is intended to assess a range of abilities that you'll develop throughout the masters. In particular, it enables assessment of your ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables you to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.