Business understanding and doing social entrepreneurship

E2025

Social Entrepreneurship and Management

Course

Mandatory

English

Read about the Master Programme and find the Study Regulations at ruc.dk

You register for activities through stads selvbetjening during the announced registration period, which you can see on the Study administration homepage.

When registering for courses, please be aware of the potential conflicts and overlaps between course and exam time and dates. The planning of course activities at Roskilde University is based on the recommended study programmes, which should not overlap. However, if you choose optional courses and/or study plans that goes beyond the recommended study programmes, an overlap of lectures or exam dates may occur depending on which courses you choose.

5

Lone Samuelsson (losa@ruc.dk)
Susanne Pernille Sonne Korsholm (skorsholm@ruc.dk)

Christine Revsbech (crevsbech@ruc.dk)

IMT Registration & Exams (imt-exams@ruc.dk)

U60222

The objective of this course is to equip students with the tools necessary to do social entrepreneurship as a business. The course deals with business planning and resource analysis, which are mainly oriented towards the production and analysis of the business plan and resources, social as well as economic, of the social enterprise. The course also presents tools for doing social entrepreneurship to allow students to develop practical skills.

The course addresses the question of what is a good social business/enterprise idea and how to evaluate it. It also engages with strategy and megatrends, mission, vision and marketing, business models and business model canvas in light of the dual mission of social enterprise. A number of examples and cases are introduced for students to understand and work with business models. And they work with their own business idea using the theoretical framework of the course, The overall goal of the cause is to demonstrate planning competences and business acumen through the preparation of a business plan for social enterprise

• Themes: Business understanding, vision/mission, strategy, business development, industry analysis, environment analysis, marketing, resource planning.

• Central questions and problems: What is a good social business idea?

• How do you find out, if it is / how do you assess the social business idea?

• Which general business tools can be used for social enterprises, and how can you alter them to work better for social enterprisers

• Purposes: To strengthen the students understanding of the business part of social enterprises

• Methods: The lecture starts with an hour of basic business tools and theories addressed to the students, who do not have a bachelor in business. The next two hours the theory is applied to social enterprises, and we look at cases. The last hour the students work on their own case with the needed supervision

• Concepts, theories: Business understanding, SWOT, Porters 5 Forces, PESTEL, Dual mission, business development canvas, finance gap, financing startups, budgeting, marketing, legal entities

• Data, materials: different articles on business development and social enterprises

The curriculum will be announced on Moodle before the beginning of the course.

Study intensity

5 ECST = 135 hours

Calculation of expected work:

Teaching hours: 8 sessions of 4 hours each, in total 32 teaching hours.

Preparation for classes 48 hours, where 32 hours is preparing for the subjects teached and 16 hours applying to their own business plan.

Finishing business plan ready to hand in 55 hours

Teaching and learning activities

• In class teaching
• Exercises
• Working with their own case
• Presentations
• Peer feedback
• Homework individually/in study groups
• Supervision of work with cases

There is continuous alignment of expectations and feedback throughout the course via joint discussions. At the end of the course, students will conduct an oral evaluation that is summarized in writing and sent to the semester coordinator (to inform the head of study and the study board). In this semester, the course is also evaluated on a survey basis as part of the study board's evaluation practice. The evaluation practice includes a survey-based evaluation of all teaching activities at least every three years as a supplement to the other forms of evaluation. Read more about the evaluation practice on the study board's page on the intranet. It is important that you contribute to the evaluations. The teacher, head of studies and the study board use all evaluations to examine and follow up on quality of the programme and provide a basis for development.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Distinguish between business models relevant for social entrepreneurship and explain central dimensions of resource planning and business planning.

• Apply tools and techniques for strategy development and analysis of externalities that could affect the social enterprise. Present and compare different marketing strategy models and conduct an industry analysis for social enterprises.

• Assess and develop a good idea into a business idea and demonstrate planning competences and business acumen through the preparation of a business plan for social enterprise.

Individual portfolio exam

The character limit of the portfolio is 12,000-16,800 characters, including spaces. Examples of written products are exercise responses, talking points for presentations, written feedback, reflections, written assignments. The preparation of the products may be subject to time limits.
The character limits include the cover, table of contents, bibliography, figures and other illustrations, but exclude appendices.

The portfolio is written completely or partially during the course.

The entire portfolio must be handed in at the same time (uploaded to eksamen.ruc.dk). Handing in the portfolio or parts of the portfolio to the supervisor for feedback, cannot replace the upload to eksamen.ruc.dk.

Assessment: Pass/Fail

Individual portfolio exam

The character limit of the portfolio is 12,000-16,800 characters, including spaces. Examples of written products are exercise responses, talking points for presentations, written feedback, reflections, written assignments. The preparation of the products may be subject to time limits.
The character limits include the cover, table of contents, bibliography, figures and other illustrations, but exclude appendices.

The portfolio is written after the course has ended.

The entire portfolio must be handed in at the same time.

Assessment: Pass/Fail

Further information about the individual portfolio exam, both as ordinary exam and re-exam:

The portfolio is individual, so you are not allowed to work in groups in regards to the written product.

The portfolio consists of an outline of a business plan of either a real or a fictive idea for a social enterprise or an analysis of the business model of an existing social enterprise. The business plan should have the following elements:

• General description of the business idea 10% 1.200 - 1.680 characters

• Social part of the business model 1.800 - 2.520 characters

• Economical part of the business model 1.800 - 2.520 characters

• Internal analysis (ressources, budget) 2.400 - 3.360 characters

• External analysis 3.000 - 4.200 characters

• Marketing of the social enterprise 600 - 840 characters

• Conclusion 1.200 - 1.680 characters

Assessment criteria

It will be assessed to which degree the student demonstrates:

• a good understanding of the business part of the social enterprise
• that they can use the theory learned on a practical case
• ability to apply business tools on social enterprises
• that they understand and can use the frameworks: Social business canvas, environment and industry analysis, mission/vision and dual mission problems

The use of GAI in this course

In this course, generative AI tools (GAI) are allowed in the work on the exam if their use is declared and follows the criteria stated here.

The declaration on the use of GAI has to be as an integrated part of the assignment for example in the methodology section.

GAI can be used in the collection of information regarding your business case, but you may not use GAI for actually writing your portfolio project.

You must clearly indicate how you have used generative artificial intelligence (GAI). It must be included as an appendix to the portfolio. This means that you must describe how you have used GAI, for example, for preparatory work on the assignment, to ask questions, search and process information, receive feedback and critique on your text, perform proofreading, or improve language and readability. It is important that you actively consider your choice of tools in this way, as it is part of the entire creation process of the assignment and thus part of your scientific method and academic communication.

The use of any specific text that is GAI-generated requires citation, just like the use of any other sources from which direct quotes are taken.

In the library's guide, you can see more about how to cite AI and how you can declare your use of GAI.

Regular spell check and other language suggestions, as known from Word or other word processing programs, as well as programs for notetaking and transcription, are allowed in all written exams and do not need to be declared. The use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) must always take place within the framework of Roskilde University's guidelines for the use of generative artificial intelligence in written exams.