Business practices in social enterprises

Organisational effectiveness is based on the ability to define and produce desired outcomes. As with many small businesses, the managers of social enterprises need to be skilled in more than one management function to make their organisations effective. According to EUROPA (www.europa.eu.int), the provision of training to build the skills of social enterprise managers ‘remains fragmented and there are few accepted standards … There is therefore a need for better-targeted and widely available training in social enterprise management’. This project began with the title ‘Benchmarking in Social Enterprises’. As empirical evidence on which to develop benchmarking in the area of Social Enterprise was lacking the project began with research to identify business and management issues. This led to the development of an analysis tool that would offer managers action steps to develop their enterprises. This tool became known as ‘Balance’. The main purpose of the project was to undertake skills analyses of SMEs in the Social Enterprise sector. These aims were to identify higher level managemen