The extent of bankers' awareness, attitude towards social enterprises Dissertation

The extent of bankers' awareness, attitude towards social enterprises business modes and social enterprises' ability to attr - Dissertation Example Major focus is placed on the objectives of the organizations. Social enterprises can be of different types. For example, a social enterprise can take the form of share capital organization, or it may be a non-share capital enterprise that is generally known to be as non-profit corporation, or it may take the form of a cooperative, or it may be built through partnership, or it may take the shape of a sole proprietorship. (Conaty, 2001; Martin and Thompson, 2009; Brooks, 2008) Very often, a social enterprise is created as a profit making independent organization having some particular social values implanted in its business activities. Some times a social enterprise is built in order to generate revenues for financing the activities of a non-profit enterprise, while in some other cases a social enterprise is simply a profit-generating subsidiary of a non-profit corporation. Most of the social enterprises operate at breakeven point or generate quite small level of profits. However, some social enterprises can be quite profitable. Everything depends on the purposes for which the social enterprises are set up. ... Second, Smallbone et al (2001) is of the opinion that the utilization of surpluses generated through their economic activities for fulfilling a social objective is the prime distinguishing characteristic of social enterprise. How social enterprises are financed: A number of literatures have put some focus on the financing of social enterprises (Smallbone et al 2001; Bnak of England, 2003, Conaty, 2001; Westall, 2001). Various studies have tries to identify the source of funds that social enterprises utilize to fulfill their noble objectives. In these studies it has been found that social enterprises generally are not capable of generating sufficient amount of revenues from the sales of goods and services for financing their social or environmental goals. The researchers have suggested that this shortfall in funding is most of time made up with grants. Grants towards social enterprises are generally provided by local, provincial or central government. Smallbone et al (2001) pointed ou t in his study that most of the types of social enterprise need grant support at the time of their initiation and early trading times. However, the level of grant support required generally varies on account of their activities and sizes. Smallbone et al (2001) interviewed 80 entrepreneurs who had set up social enterprises and they found that 39 percent of them obtained grants from European Commission, 49 percent from regional or central administration and 33 percent from the local government. This kind of funding is generally utilized to finance expenditures on capital. Conaty (2001) identified two largest sources of funds to finance expenditure on capital in social enterprises. One of them is