Successful accomplishment of a social enterprise seeks to address a gap in the society with the ultimate aim of giving forth outcomes which will benefit members of the society ( Defourny & Nyssens (2006 ). In the context of establishing water purification facility to benefit the entire community, there is an apparent need to address opportunity aspects of opportunity, mission and model by drawing existing relationship among the three aspects so as to accomplish this enterprise in a smooth and uninterrupted manner possible. This assignment addresses these aspects of the enterprise in regard to how they collectively fit together in the ecosystem of the enterprise and further evaluates the trends that define these aspects in the context of the social enterprise. Towards the end, the paper evaluates the enterprise’s competitive advantage and its sustainability alongside personal leadership journey to be followed for the success of the enterprise.
The ecosystem of this project is a community in need of purified water with the aim of reducing health-related diseases that result from drinking and using contaminated water. Opportunity in this interactive relationship between community members and their environment (ecosystem) is therefore, the idea and the resources available to establish a water purification facility to improve the wellbeing of community members. Effective utilization of this opportunity requires critical reflection upon the best way possible to fill the existing gap and solve the ongoing problem. The process involved in solving this need by taking advantage of the opportunity and utilizing it well is the mission. For this enterprise, mission is a series of steps undertaken to utilize an opportunity so as to solve the need for cleaner and purified water and accomplish an objective of preventing water-borne diseases. The best process to adopt for the accomplishment of this mission need to have been researched on, applied in similar contexts and proved to be efficient, functional and effective. Further according to Rosli & Rossi (2016), a mission is intended to accomplish predetermined goals and objectives. A model is what informs the appropriateness of a particular process (Han & Park, 2009).
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Therefore, the best way to accomplish a mission of utilizing an opportunity is to use a model. As such, the three aspects of social enterprise are in the sense that an opportunity to have a water purification facility is the idea and the resources available for its establishment. Its benefits can be realized by engaging in a mission of establishing and sustaining it using the best approach possible which is informed by the model used.
Trends in the Social Enterprise
There has been emergence of scientific models to substitute conventional model in almost all aspects of research. Establishment of a water purification facility is one of such enterprises that are hinged on the principles derived from scientific research. Therefore, the number of models that inform the process (mission) have apparently gone up, making available more than just one approach to this enterprise implementation.
Competitive Advantage and Sustainability of the Social Enterprise
Establishment of a facility for the purification of water is aimed at achieving a healthy society free from water-borne and other related diseases and infections. Competitive advantage of an enterprise is the extent to which that enterprise overrides other enterprises in terms of both long-term and short-term benefits ( Barney, 2014 ). This enterprise is capable of helping members of the community to avoid incurring expenses on medication of diseases, increases life expectancy and is also capable of enabling families and individuals to settle on other economic activities that generally increase the quality of life.
Upon successful establishment and stabilization of the enterprise, community members will be responsible of ensuring its long-term survival. This means that it is through the efforts of the community that the project will be sustained. Because the community comprises of a range of resources capable of sustaining the enterprise, its sustainability is assured. It can therefore, be concluded that the enterprise is both competitive and sustainable in the long run.
Personal Leadership Journey
The personal leadership journey that can enable a leader of this enterprise find and develop meaningful and purposeful work through the process of enterprise planning requires one to have necessary competencies, skills and qualities of both a project and an organizational manager. These qualities, skills and competencies include emotional leadership skills, appropriate problem-solving skills, time-management skills, commitment, persistence and perseverance, effective communication skills, prior planning skills, effective budgeting for the resources available, networking skills and competencies, prior experience in the management of a social enterprise or project, and qualities of positive interaction. On top of these qualities, the enterprise leader should be an assured achiever and an optimist who can set high goals and pursue them consistently to the last point of attainment of results.
Conclusion
In summary, this paper offers an evaluation of the interim relationship that exists among the three pertinent concepts of social enterprise namely; opportunity, mission and model. These three aspects interact in the sense that mission drives opportunity while model is used to drive the mission. Further in this paper, it has been identified that the emerging trends to the model of establishment of water purification facilities, as in deed any other project or enterprise in the area of science and research has undergone tremendous transformation which have led to the emergency of various models to inform the process (mission). Generally, this enterprise is worth of giving forth both long-term and short –term results in a variety of ways, hence its competitive advantage. Since it will be entirely under the control of the community, its sustainability is assured. Some of the personal leadership qualities that are required to successfully drive this enterprise have been described in the last section. Generally, these competencies and qualities are universal to all leaders.
References
Barney, J. B. (2014). Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage . Pearson Higher Ed.
Defourny, J., & Nyssens, M. (2006). Defining social enterprise. Social enterprise: At the crossroads of market, public policies and civil society , 7 , 3-27.
Han, K. H., & Park, J. W. (2009). Process-centered knowledge model and enterprise ontology for the development of knowledge management system. Expert Systems with Applications , 36 (4), 7441-7447.
Rosli, A., & Rossi, F. (2016). Third-mission policy goals and incentives from performance-based funding: Are they aligned?. Research Evaluation , 25 (4), 427-441.
