Category: Social Change

The responsibility of the media to act as an avenue for social change has been ignored for several years when various TV shows have presented various programs to serve capitalism. In this way, information is conveyed to the audience without engaging the audience in the production of those shows and hence these shows normally serve the purpose of entertainment but ignore the important part of transforming the society.

When the audiences are involved in the production of these programs, the content of these programs will affect the audience directly or indirectly and hence capable of changing their way of thinking or attitudes on certain issues that affect our society such as challenging racism (Alia, 2004).

The responsibility to transform the society socially therefore lies on the producers and the users of these shows and not the owners or the investors of these media avenues. The role of the users will be to influence the producers while the producers’ role is to produce and direct these shows for the society. The producer therefore should use his or her professional skills to produce for the society.

However, he or she cannot make a great impact alone and therefore has to involve everyone in the society. As stated by Bartkowiak (2009), the possibility of changing our society through TV shows depends on the involvement of the society just like in other media like the newspapers and magazines.

One of the ways of ensuring that every one in the society is involved is to focus on documentary shows. Unlike other programs that mainly follow the commercial pattern, documentary shows are capable of transforming our society as well as achieving success in media entertainment business (Yadav, 2004).

A television show that promotes a better understanding of each other in the society is the one that is capable of transforming that society. Better understanding is vital for resolving social conflicts among different groups in the society. ‘’Konkonkon is a documentary of life of ‘’no body’’. This show presents different individuals in depth and reflects the conflicts in the society.

No body here means people who are homeless, disabled persons, prostitutes, and other disadvantaged people in the society who are often forgotten in the society and that’s the reason the show named them nobody.

Most of the public media have no room for this people as they assume that they do not exist since there is no show that focuses mainly on them to show that they exist. This show involves presentation of someone’s everyday life and how the person goes on expressing personality, individual traits and character rather than suppressing them to adopt a role (Nichols, 2010).

The name of the show itself is very important as it tells from the first insight what the show entails and therefore one is able to reflect what probably is in the show. This show is important for the society since it gives these challenged people an opportunity to present their case over the media that has often ignored them.

This takes place through their participation as guests in these shows. They have an opportunity to share their story in the society and to let others know that they are ‘’human’’ a value as a part of this society.

The search for these guests are very important since the guest that will appear in this kind of show has a greater impact on the audience. The guest should therefore be a role model to nobody person. They should also be people who are able to testify their stories freely without any condition or favoritism of any manner.

This person has to be one who had transformed from nobody to somebody for him to be qualified as a guest and as a role model. In this way these people are able to use the media as a propaganda tool to represent themselves and from their stories they are able to inspire and transform the society.

Once a theme has been developed, the searches for the guests begin. This can be done through moving within the society informing people about the topic and the people come and that’s when the qualified person is chosen. The qualified people are also got from the audiences of this particular show through their comments about the show.

The activities of these people are therefore watched and the project may take even a whole year. This is very important to ensure the content of that particular show is as accurate as possible. In this way the show presents a real life story telling by the guest without directing.

This kind of show has the effects of transforming the way of thinking of several audiences as most of them will be asking themselves questions that they answer themselves while others will be sympathizing with the quests hence they get inspired. It also highlights the notion of the public and how popular genres are connected in the society (Hill, 2007). This is very important for the social change.

It is also true that when the audiences are frequently subjected to questioning their lives, they learn and quickly fix the knowledge into their minds and therefore helps them change their mind after watching the show. This may be racism or even segregation that is affecting the society. Documentary TV shows has therefore moved from those days that they reflected the uncertainties and tensions of the modern world (Chapman, 2009).

This shows that the participation of the audiences, the guests and the quality of the quests are very important for the producer of this show and hence the participation of everyone in the process is the key to success of the show in transforming the society.

What is important here for the producer is therefore to enable the society develop new thought, sediment new knowledge and put this particular knowledge into action. This then results to the change in the society thinking and attitudes concerning certain issues in the society.

The focus in the media therefore should be to transform the society and not mainly commercialize the shows just for self gaining.

We should think about the society that we live in and ask ourselves who will clean our house for us or do we leave our own house dirty and proceed to clean others. It is important to note that even though we may be making a lot of profit the society may not be at peace and we should always do what we think is the best.

References

Alia, V. (2004). Media ethics and social change. New York: Edinburgh University Press.

Bartkowiak, M. (2009). The Mc5 and social change: A study in rock and revolution. USA: McFarland and Company Ltd.

Chapman, J. (2009). Issues in contemporary documentary. UK: Polity Press.

Hill, A. (2007). Restyling factual TV: Audiences and news, documentary and reality genres. New York: Rutledge.

Nichols, B. (2010). Introduction to documentary: Second edition. USA: Indiana University Press.

Yadav, J. (2004). Television and social change. New Delhi: Anmol Publications PVT.

Introduction: A Brief Overview of the Social Situation in the 1970s

The period of the 1970s was associated in the United States with substantial social and political reform, in particular with the introduction of truly equal rights and improvement of minorities’ image in the social consciousness and the transition of the American politics from the military to the more peaceful political course (Binkley, 2007, p.54; Carlisle & Golson, 2007, p.18). The present paper is intended to discuss the relationship between contemporary ad design and promotion of social change.

First of all, it is necessary to delineate the key social, political and cultural tendencies for which the 1970s in America were actually famous. First of all, the 1960s legacy of equality and anti-war movements was maintained and enriched in the 1970s, so that racial minorities, for instance, received an opportunity called affirmative action, which encouraged employers to promote nom-white workers and gave minority students expanded access to education (Carroll, 1990, p.49; Szulz, 1974, p. 82). Furthermore, women were granted additional rights to control childbirth; moreover, the 1960s social struggle of women for equal treatment in occupational settings continued. Moreover, the perceptions of women’s physical identity were reconsidered: “The recognition that sex –and often sex alone – determined one’s identity came as a traumatic truth to American women – not only because the idea contradicted timeworn rhetoric about social equality“ (Carroll, 1990, p.24). Furthermore, in 1975, the 16-year Vietnam War came to its end, partly owing to the activism of the grassroots groups and to great extent due to the fact that the economy was drained and the society – exhausted – by the military conflict which seemed to bring no perceivable benefit. The new political challenges on which the government focused was balancing the growth of nuclear armament with the social protests against mass destruction weapons and the popularization of environment protection groups (Tropman, 1998, p.59). In the 1970s, the postwar baby boomers were growing, maturing into well-educated young people who had a broad range of professional opportunities, as opposed to their parents, as the 1970s young adults were 30% more likely to get at least college education (Carlisle & Golson, 2007, p.64). Thus, the children, born in the postwar years, won their economic independence in the 1970s, and the main part of the popular culture was intended mainly for the numerous middle-class young adults aged 20-25. Thus, it enjoyed a diversification in terms of styles, genres, e.g., there appeared a variety of directions in music and fashion (Tropman, 1998, p.112; Rajvanshi, 2001, p.19). At the same time, these young people did not rash to create a traditional nuclear family, as their [parents did at age 20-25; moreover, the economic and social liberation of women to certain degree “undermined” family values: “A 1978 Gallup survey of teenage attitudes toward divorce found that two-thirds of the nation’s youth endorsed separation on grounds of incompatibility” (Carroll, 1990, p.278)

Reflections on the Social Change in Advertising

The design of the contemporary advertisements to great extent reflected the liberation of gender minorities. For instance, the interesting ad spread by Republic Steel, one of the largest American steel producers, talks about the importance of women’s participation in labour market. The image clearly demonstrates that the company willingly hires women of all national and cultural backgrounds, regardless of their lifestyles and hobbies, as one of the women on the picture is definitely interested in sports (a racer or horse rider), the second one probably has more traditionalist views due to her modest dressing and hairstyle, whereas the third one is a representative of the middle-class African American population, which was growing in the 1970s as a result of the governmentally endorsed equality in educational and occupational areas. All these women are depicted as well-educated and career-oriented employees, as logically, there are no males or “breadwinners” present, so these three women provide for themselves on their own, and their apparel clearly demonstrates that they can afford fashionable clothing. At the same time, these women are relatively young, probably aged below 30, so the design of this ad is aimed first and foremost at “baby boomers” who were the first to make use of and capitalize on the new educational and professional opportunities (Binkley, 2007, p.128).

Promotion of Social and Cultural Change Through Advertising

The two ads promoting Kool and Trust cigarettes are also quite illustrative in terms of contemporary social change. The Kool commercial shows a young woman, probably from the generation of baby boomers, who rides a bike and informs the audience that Kool is a choice of active women. Whereas female images were used in cigarette advertising before the 1970s, the heroine of the present image is to great extent “masculinized”, as her hobby is obviously “manly” and she is positioned as a smoker. As this ad provides comprehensive information including her age, social class (middle class), possible occupation (white-collar employee), it suggests that all women lead dynamic lifestyles, do sports and engage with “male” activities without any prejudices and supervision, as they are young, beautiful, independent, self-confident and definitely can afford “being themselves”. Similarly, the main character of the Trust commercial is obviously a professional athlete, who is concerned about her health and thus selects “light” and low-nicotine cigarettes. This woman is smoking on the tennis court, probably having her rest after a difficult tournament. From the perspective of design, this advertisement conveys a powerful message, which is not related to encouraging females to consume nicotine, it rather motivates females with sports ambitions to forget about their fears of discrimination and become professional athletes. It needs to be noted that systemic discrimination on the basis of gender in professional sports was actually mitigated by the 1970s when women began to make careers in previously “men-only” areas like basketball and tennis (Carlisle & Golson, 2007, p.154). The hero of the Trust ad is a prominent example of a successful sports star who enjoyed fulfilling professional development and thus might have become a role model for a number of young and ambitious female athletes.

As the traditional patterns of female beauty in advertising and ad design were reviewed in connection with the spread of feminism, one of the prominent ads promoting “natural appearance” as beautiful is the Kellogg’s commercial. As one can see, the image shows a woman, who cannot be categorized as attractive or even cute; moreover, she is dressed very modestly and has very little makeup on her face. However, the photographer decided to take a close-up of the heroine and the designer’s decision was revealing each trait of her face. The image of non-canonical women points to the existing social discourse about the transformation of the beauty canon and reconsideration of women’s physical identity. The emphasis on the bodily characteristics, maintained in the 1950s-1960s through displaying glamorous models with perfect hairstyles and notable makeup was replaced with propagation of “the natural” look, so the appearance of the ad star was closer to the image of the average American female.

As noted above, the design of advertising in the 1970s to great extent promoted social change, which consisted in women’s paid employment and career success in “white-collar” positions and professional sports. In addition, due to the fact that the recurrent theme of the 1970s mass communication was concerns about environment and biodiversity preservation, a number of ads highlighted the necessity of using electricity and gas-saving technologies at home. For instance, the commercial, issued by the American Gas Association, suggests that all homeowners use gas air conditioning in order to save operation costs. Moreover, the new technology naturally contributed to optimization of natural gas distribution across the country, which, in turn, allowed maintaining ecological stability in certain regions.

Another important mission of the contemporary mass communication was normalization of the image of racial and ethnic minorities. For instance, the Breck Girl Shampoo ad portrays a Latino (or Mexican American) model. Due to the fact that her image is used in relationship with beauty, one can assume that this commercial underlies a powerful message stating that minority women are really admirable, even if compared with the canonic fair-haired and blue-eyed American. The designer’s decision was using a close-up of the woman’s face, and one can assume that Latino women are friendly (the heroine is smiling openly), polite and well-mannered (the heroine is dressed according to the existing code) and not necessarily belong to the working class, as the face of the main character is placed on the background, which shows various scenes from the life of the Victorian top class. Thus, the Breck Girl picture can be viewed as a call for the elimination of discrimination against and stereotypes about Latino women, traditionally perceived as aggressive and narrow-minded (Tropman, 1998, p. 92).

The concepts chosen for Burger Beer and Hudepohl Beer promotion are even more unexpected, as both of them show African Americans, who seemed to fit into the 1970s standards of pleasant appearance as opposed to those of the 1950s and 1960s. The burger ad is monochrome and contains a close-up photograph of an African American woman, and the slogan on the top of the picture writes: “Burger is Beautiful”. The Hudepohl ad shows a scene from the life of an African American couple, both are drinking beer before going to the club. As both man and woman are drawn on the foreground, the overall impression about the ad is positive, as it creates a sense of intimacy, i.e. it seems like the two are sharing secrets about their relationships. Both images endorse social change by encouraging the audience to alter their views on African Americans and develop the belief that they are not different from the ”majority Americans”, as the representatives of this ethnic group are pleasant, sincere and lead absolutely the same lifestyle as the others, so there is no reason to exclude them from the society.

Finally, it needs to be admitted that the advertising of the 1970s actually contributed to the neglect of the traditional family values, which was statistically measured by the end of the decade (Carroll, 1990, p. 280). In particular, most advertising campaigns implied depicting the free relationships of young people and targeted their products for individual citizens rather than for “family use” (Binkley, 2007, p.43). For instance, such products as Kellogg’s Crisps, intended for all audiences, are advertised through using the images of a single woman or a couple, rather than the regular patterns of “family routines”, “family pastime” and “family breakfast”. Therefore, even the producers of “family use” commodities tended to promote individualism and free relationships rather than nuclear households. As one can conclude from the above-described ads, the centre of the visualized concept in advertising is either a single person or a dating couple, even the Armstrong Vinyl Ceilings commercial, which underlines comfort and domestic atmosphere, employs the image of a single girl, who obviously enjoys living in such a “hi-tech” apartment.

Conclusion

To sum up, the social change of the 1970s was to a certain degree crafted by the contemporary ads, which promoted accepting and non-discriminatory attitudes towards racial minorities, women’s career determination and professional growth as well as individualism, which sometimes turned into “sound egoism” of being oneself at any price.

References

Carroll, P. 1990. It seemed like nothing happened: America in the 1970s. Rutgers University Press.
Binkley, S. 2007. Getting loose: lifestyle consumption in the 1970s. Duke University Press.
Carlisle, R. and Golson, G. 2007. America in Revolt During the 1960s and 1970s. ABC-CLIO.
Tropman, J. 1998. Does America hate the poor?: the other American dilemma: lessons for the 21st century from the 1960s and the 1970s. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Szulz, T. 1974. Innocents at home: America in the 1970s. Viking Press.
Rajvanshi, A. 2001. America –An Indian Student’s Journey. NARI Press.

Design ideologies have in the past listening carefully to the foundation of the technical and methodical rules of the delivery process. Certainly, good contribution engineering design involves many parameters in the lead that the success of the project depends on, each of which has its own subset of laws, standards, practices, codes and conventions.

Nevertheless, basically all these more specialized constraints and directives are principles that are even more fundamental associated with the original decision-making process, which provide the full framework for good design. These ideologies may be well known to experienced designers, but may not have been communicated to students, yet understanding them is essential if design decisions are to produce desirable results. They are not the simply scientific, obvious principles, such as the laws of static or thermodynamics, which are already part of the engineering curriculum, but obtain more from experience, practice or pragmatism.

Therefore, they are the very substance of professional engineering judgment. The period selected for analysis in the 1990s-2000. this period was marked by a unique change in technology and sustainable design parameters applied to all social and business spheres.

No one can deny that in order to make environmentally friendly products, everyone involved in the product developing process has to consider the environmental aspects. Therefore, there are other aspects such as economics, function, quality etc. the environmental issue has to be implemented all through the whole process. Moreover, it is very significant to assist the designers to make decisions that ultimately lead to environmentally sound products. It is clear that the core of decision-making in any technical project is the design strategy. It is the essential creative process of engineering different from science, which calls for imagination, application of technical expertise and experience, and skillful use of materials.

Paradoxically, however, because engineers are so good at delivering the given necessities of the project, they are often not involved in the design element of the process, which is seen as part of the development of decisions made by others. On the other hand, this means that engineers are not participating in primary decision-making as usefully as they could. It is significant that practicing engineers and engineering students understand the synergy between engineering design and high-level decision-making. Consequently, it is mainly important that the general and interdisciplinary aspects of design be demonstrated at every stage in the design process.

The Eco-Housing assessment criteria and rating system, developed after studying other national and international green rating systems, is applicable only to residential projects. The voluntary rating system incorporates global best practices to help developers and architects design and evaluate the green quotient of new residential projects.

On the other side, to determine the environmental performance of a building, the Eco-Housing assessment criteria are divided into the following eight broad categories, with each category describes a set of measures that need to be fulfilled. The eight broad categories are site planning, environment architecture, energy-efficient lighting, solar water heaters, efficient building materials, water conservation, segregation of waste, and other innovative technologies. In the same field, every measure has been assigned points depending on its impact on environment, and its relevance to local conditions^v.

The Eco-Housing assessment criteria developed comprise both voluntary and obligatory measures. Each measure has been assigned points depending on the environmental impact. The Eco-Housing assessment criteria have a totality of 88 measures spread over the 8 focus areas. In the same field, only 27 of the 88 measures are obligatory. The maximum reachable points are 1000 and the project has to get a minimum of 500 points to qualify for Eco-Housing rating.

Thus, each measure has a submittal necessity and the essential documentation should be together with the Eco-Housing proposal to show compliance with the measures being attempted. In addition to that, the Eco-Housing rating system is based on the number of points earned. The rating accomplished relies on the number of voluntary measures incorporated in addition to the obligatory ones.

On the other hand, many companies in Europe have formulated their environmental policies, and try to integrate this issue into the daily work of the product developers. In order to find out how the environmental policy of a company essentially affects the designers, a series of interviews with product developers has been made. On the other side, the environmental aspects have now been in general incorporated in the product development process. Nevertheless, designers frequently have to give priority to some essential aspects such as economy, function and quality, limiting severely the possibility to integrate the environmental aspects.

The design promotes changes in social thinking and understanding of natural resources. Ethical consumption and protection of land resources are some of the most important environmental issues today. Where design diverges, however, from those areas of cultural activity which are related directly to self-expression and life improvement is the moment at which it enters the realms of mass production and mass consumption. From that point onwards it becomes harder for self-expression, whether that of the designer or the consumer, to assert itself within the economic determination of the framework which defines their actions.

Mass cultural values, reflected in mass taste and symbolized by mass-produced artifacts, are perpetrated by the mass manufacturer and absorbed wholesale by the mass consumer. Only within subcultures, or other ‘alternative’ cultural groups, are other values asserted and, once again, it is through artifacts, whether clothes or lifestyle accompaniments either made especially or appropriated, that these values are communicated.

Design is, therefore, an important medium of communication that expresses the values of the system within which it functions. Environmentally friendly design sets out to describe the twentieth-century design in as broad a cultural context as possible, indicating many of the different forces that have determined its evolution and describing a number of the more significant developments that have taken place.

Many smaller, more self-contained histories could run parallel with this general work, serving to pull together many of the threads. The biography of any number of industrial designers, or the full story of any mass-produced object, such as the telephone or the chair, would, for example, touch and illuminate many of the themes. Environmentally friendly design serves to contextualize design not for academic purposes alone but also to allow designers themselves to see their task in perspective and to question some of the narrow assumptions they have inherited about their cultural role in this century.

While still fulfilling manufacturing industries’ needs for ever-increasing production and consumption, the designer is still in a unique position of being able to improve the quality of life in a number of ways, whether in terms of influencing the ergonomic and aesthetic quality of products, or of social and psychological fulfillment and cultural richness.

The new environmentally friendly design concerns the symbolic relationship of man to his material environment, namely, that a commitment to new materials implies a commitment to the present and to the future and the discovery of new materials throughout this century has generally been accompanied by a mood of optimism and excitement. Latterly with the demise of this commitment to ‘the shock of the new’ and the reassertion in many quarters of an interest in nostalgia, revivalism, traditional skills and vernacular styles, the value of new materials has also been thrown into question.

In this century the age of new materials belongs, therefore, to the period between the two world wars when, in spite of sustained economic pessimism, the optimism engendered by a belief in the future was fuelled by the new materials, and the modem aesthetic that designers created for them. Although developments in metals and plastics have dominated the advances in materials technology for manufacturing industry in this century there have been a few other innovations which have also had far-reaching effects. Among those which came into their own in the interwar period were rayon and new forms of glass. The aesthetic limitations imposed by the production methods are particular to this particular process.

An emphasis on curves, the compositional role of the ‘parting line’, colour and size are crucial visual components of plastics design, the technical limitations of which the designer has to discuss carefully with the engineer before design can begin. Perhaps more than any other single material it is plastics which have encouraged designers and manufacturers to move towards aesthetic simplicity in the mass-produced artefact.

In sum, the period of 1990- 2000 was marked by the specification of environmental problems, so the related question as to how problems will be investigated, and more significantly, which personnel will be chosen to carry out the research, grows in importance. The main trends in ethical consumption are innovative technologies and production facilities which help farmers to reduce land use and produce more annually.

There is no doubting that there could well be some revolutionary changes about to occur in the way in which the agro-food system functions. There is the belief that technology is shaped by social structures and that it often performs a specific social function which reflects the interests of particular sectors of society. This critique explicitly takes into account the unequal distribution of political resources in society and the implications that this has for the development of agricultural technologies Technical change is not only an instrument in the generation of an economic surplus but also an object and an instrument of social conflicts.

Technical change conditions the social control of the means of production, the organization of the labor process, the social division of labor, and the social appropriation of the surplus. Social conflicts affect the rate and direction of technical change at several different levels.

Each step towards a tighter specification of the aims of the organization constitutes a de-selection of other approaches to research. If the appropriable nature of these innovations supposedly corrects for market in terms of R&D resource allocation, it is reasonable to ask whether appropriateness effectively distorts decisions made concerning what gets researched, especially if private sector involvement in research effectively pushes the public sector into a more subservient position.

References

Allen, E., Iano, J. Fundamentals of Building Construction. John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

Bansal, P. Building Competitive Advantage and Managing Risks through Sustainable Development. IVET Business Journal. 2001, pp. 48-52.

Brands, Innovation and Growth. PIMS 2004, pp. 1-49.

Corbey, S. “The BedZED lessons“. University of East London, 2005.

Holm, I. Ideas and Beliefs in Architecture and Industrial design: How attitudes, orientations and underlying assumptions shape the built environment. Oslo School of Architecture and Design, 2006.

Lazarus, N. “Beddington Zero (Fossil) Energy Development: Toolkit for Carbon Neutral Developments – Part II“. BioRegional, 2003.

Reilly, Trish.. Green by Design. The Environmental Magazine, 13, (2002) pp. 20-22.

Thomas, R. Green Agenda. The Architectural Review, 2003, p. 214,

Tomkin, D. Greener By. U:. 6 (1), 2007, pp. 10-11.

Wacker, J. Technology can Help the Environment. Eweek Strategic Partner. 2008.

Williamson, T.J., Bennets, H., Radford, A. Understanding Sustainable Architecture. Taylor & Francis, 2002.

XYZ Company manufactures agricultural chemicals. A year ago, the company experienced significant scandals including charges of stock fraud, harassment lawsuit against several executives and dumping waste into a neighboring wildlife preserve.

Why might such Pressure Cause XYZ to Change?

The external pressure facing XYZ might make the company to embrace change because the firm has to adhere to societal expectations in regard to environmental responsibility and general community involvement.

Recently, information and modern technology have contributed extensively to the growth of social pressure, since information regarding firms that do not conform to social standards spread quickly. Also, external members expect that companies conduct business fairly, maintain favorable working conditions for employees and carry out activities that do not harm the environment.

Failure to do so may spur demonstrations by community members or warnings by environmental pressure groups, in order to force the company to conduct activities that preserve the environment. Also, XYZ Company may face prosecution in a criminal court, due to stock fraud. Besides, failing to adhere to societal expectation will, ultimately, create an unhealthy reputation for the company, which might make customers obtain products from other firms that have similar products.

How does this affect the Organizational Ethics of Work at XYZ?

Outside pressure, regarding the above mentioned issues, will affect organizational ethics of work at XYZ. First, management practices must be adjusted to suit the needs of employers. As mentioned, in the introduction, a number of executives have filed harassment lawsuits against the company. This implies that organizational ethics have to be adjusted, in order to enhance worker satisfaction and productivity in the company.

Besides, XYZ needs to impact outside members positively, through stopping to dump waste products into the nearby wildlife preserve. This will create a positive public image, which is likely to attract new customers. Lastly, the company has to stop stock fraud, because the public may put pressure on legislators to impose existing regulations regarding stock frauds. The company should ensure that both internal and external auditors receive the right information regarding sales and stocks of the company.

What Change might XYZ Incorporate?

XYZ needs to establish an ethical workplace through creating, and constantly, improving the code of ethics. This will encourage ethical practices, in the firm, in order to ensure moral conduct and make potential customers and employees consider the company as ethical.

The managers, at XYZ, can also create a department entrusted with overseeing ethical practices in the organization. Such a department would denote to all external members that the company has committed to upholding ethical practices.

Another change that XYZ may incorporate involves training the entire workforce on new ethical practices that the company desires. Such training programs do not highlight all the practice that must be observed. Rather, the training enables managers to have a framework that they can use to judge whether some actions are ethical or not.

Besides, the company should incorporate social goals into the yearly planning processes. Such an approach of meeting social requirements indicates that a company is socially responsible.

Lastly, managers at XYZ should be accountable for creating and upholding conditions whereby people are apt to act ethically and reduce situations that promote unethical behavior. Managers, through taking charge of these aspects, can reduce the urge to perform unethical acts, as well as, promote social responsibility at XYZ.

In conclusion, social pressure affects how a company functions. Failure to adhere to such pressure may ruin the reputation of a business, or make a business cease to attract new customers.

Background

In the current world, increasing pressure from problems that arise due to daily changes in the business sector is driving businesses towards finding alternatives to abate the problem. In fact, businesses are drifting further away from the old forms of thinking and incorporating sustainability programmes to create new market (Elkington, Schwab, & Hartigan, 2008).

The changes witnessed in the current business world and the crazy search for new markets is driving entrepreneurship to have a new shift in leadership and management. Social entrepreneurship is like a hybrid that combines both commercial entrepreneurship and social aspects in an organization.

Social change in entrepreneurship

Failing governments and the lack of economic enterpreurship has driven the need for social entrepreneurship to rise (Wei-Skillern, Austin, & Leonard, 2007). Social enterpreurship is a form of enterpreurship that incorporates facets of both economic and social aspects in a business idea (Martin & Osberg, 2007). It is a venture that brings into account the activities that impact positively in a society bringing about social change.

This shift in business paradigm occurred due to the existing suffocation of markets and the need for new markets. The urgency of these new markets has been brought about by the increasing competition faced by businesses. Although social entrepreneurship starts as a small venture or limited effort, it marks troubles with the local output but makes global significance.

This includes provision of water, promoting micro-businesses, waste managing and the preservation of the environment. For example, the escalating growth of micro-industries in the world is due to social entrepreneurship (Zahra et al., 2008).

The development of such ventures and their success has turned them to the spotlight and they have received scholarly attention. This scholarly attention has led to the need to formulate theories that explain this phenomenon (Kuhn, 1962). The idea of social enterpreurship offers a platform for alleviating world poverty through promoting social good (Yunus, 2007)

The positive externalities theory

It is important that any theory that tries to define the concept of social entrepreneurship should address the issues of value creation and value appropriation (Mizik & Jacob, 2003).

The theory of positive externalities best explains the shift towards social enterpreurship. It is apparent that economic entrepreneurship cannot exist in a vacuum. This theory suggests that economic enterpreurship is not valid in areas where there are strong positive externalities.

Basically, the assertion is that the potentiality for value creation is not marched by the potential for value appropriation because the ensuing benefits to the society go much above the benefits accrued to the transacting parties. It is also observed that consumers are likely to reward businesses with positive externalities by consuming more of their goods.

Further, it is perceived that government initiatives and economic entrepreneurship benefits those people with powerful access to resources neglecting the powerless societies. In this theory, powerless society benefits from social entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurs benefit from the powerless society by establishing markets that ensure sustainability.

Although this venture brings forth an implication in the theory, it is not contrary to the definition of the terminology (Campbell & Temple University, 2008).

Explanation of the positive externalities theory

The theory points that the externality notion cannot be clearly depicted by market operation or market price structure which leads to incompetent distribution of wealth, social remuneration, personal expenditure and communal expenses (Ying & Guoli, 1997).

Characteristics of positive externality hypothesis include transferring via other way and not through the price system, non-exclusive and inseparable part as a characteristic of end user, bringing other utilities expenses to decrease and the alleviation of costs to the beneficiary.

The positive externality theory assumes that the allocation of social entrepreneurship is largely for the benefit of the society and not targeted towards the profit analysis. Therefore, the social enterpreurship system distributes benefits and costs based not on the market system of analyzing where profits can be maximized, but by targeting the neglected areas of the society.

Social entrepreneurship also targets areas where economic entrepreneurship has failed to venture, a characteristic that is not exclusive of any player in the society. It aims at creating societal value and not economic value.

Social enterpreurship alleviates the standards of the economic as well as social conditions of a neglected or powerless society. In this quest, it aims at reducing the costs of certain provisions that would have been so costly if provided by the economic entrepreneurs. The positive externality theory aims to balance between value creation and value addition in cases where it ventures (Ellwanger, 1997).

Criticisms of the positive externalities theory

Social enterpreurship is an innovative change that is gripping the business world daily. It is apparent that what the social entrepreneurs strive to achieve is becoming more complex and the desire to augment the costs incurred in creating social value is rising day by day.

The costs also involved in the set up of the social entrepreneurship activities are proving hard to meet by the entrepreneurs thereby distorting the credibility of the theory.

Furthermore, as inflation rises, due expenditures in these endeavors are becoming increasingly complex and are therefore neglected to be attended to by the government (Wei-Skillern, Austin, & Leonard, 2007). This leaves a lot of unfilled gaps in the tenacity of the theory.

Conclusion

The idea of social entrepreneurship taking shape and being embraced by the business world requires a thorough consideration and thought before being implemented. It takes a different mindset from the one embraced by economic entrepreneurs in their profit maximization.

Social entrepreneurship on the other hand aims at creating social value. In the wake of inflation and increased costs, social entrepreneurs need to have a re-consideration of the theories they use.

References

Campbell, K. A. & Temple University. (2008). Towards a general theory of entrepreneurship. London, UK: ProQuest.

Elkington, J., Schwab, K. & Hartigan, P. (2008). Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World. New York, NY: Harvard Business Review Press.

Ellwanger, G. (1997). The externality effects of transport, rail international. New York, NY: MacMillan Publishers.

Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: Chicago University press.

Martin, R. L. & Osberg, S. (2007). Social entrepreneurship: The case for definition. Stanford Social Innovation Review, pp.28-39.

Mizik, N. & Jacobson, R. (2003). Trading off between Value Creation and Value Appropriation: The Financial Implications of Shifts in Strategic Emphasis. Journal of Marketing, 67, pp. 63-67.

Wei-Skillern, J., Austin, J. E., & Leonard, H. (2007). Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector. London, UK: Sage Publications.

Ying, Y. & Guoli, O. (1997). Study on the development strategy of urban rail transit based on externality. New York, NY: MacMillan Publishers.

Yunus, M. (2007). Creating a world without poverty: Social business and the future of capitalism. New York: Public Affairs.

Zahra, S. A. Rawhouser, H. N., Bhawe, N., Neubaum, D. O. & Hayton, J. C. (2008). Globalization of social entrepreneurship Opportunities. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2 (2), pp.117-131.