How to scale the societal impact of work integration social enterprises? Evidence from The Netherlands

The number of social enterprises is increasing rapidly. Social enterprises are looking for new, innovative and economically sustainable ways to tackle structural societal challenges that generally fall outside the direct focus and objectives of the public and private sector. Social enterprises are primarily mission-driven, where profit is not a goal in itself but a means of creating social impact with regard to a specific social problem. The intended impact areas of social enterprises broadly range from poverty reduction, sustainability, healthcare, or labor participation of vulnerable groups. With respect to the latter impact area, many initiatives have been taken across Europe to prevent and combat marginalization of vulnerable groups as a result of long unemployment spells, which may cause financial and social pressure, as well as decay of physical and psychological health conditions. Nevertheless, the nature and extent of these initiatives vary considerably across countries (CEDEFOP, 2018). Social enterprises, in collaboration with other relevant stakeholders such as ‘conventional’ companies or local governments, can play a key role in addressing these challenges. This proposal builds on research that was completed earlier this year at HU concerning the scaling of social enterprises with a particular focus on work integration of people with a distance to the labor market (so-called WISEs) (e.g. people with low qualifications, young people disengaged from education, people with mental or physical disabilities, refugees, former prisoners, former addicts, or people who have difficulties finding a job due to their age etc.). One of the outcomes of this research showed that it is difficult for WISEs to transcend its societal impact beyond the local level. In practice, the effective realization of both social and economic value is not easy for many WISEs, but the interaction with and between different actors in the external environment or ecosystem also plays a crucial role in its success. More research is needed on what works in successfully addressing the work integration of vulnerable groups in different parts of Europe, and under what conditions. The aim is to come to a joint EU research proposal, in which WISEs play a central role, to contribute to innovative and more structural solutions for labor participation of vulnerable groups.De Bell, L.; Drupsteen, L. (2019). How to scale the societal impact of work integration social enterprises? Evidence from The Netherlands. En Proceedings 5th CARPE Conference: Horizon Europe and beyond. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 159-167. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARPE2019.2019.10191OCS15916

Value of Safety (VALOSA) : Final report

Many companies describe safety as their top priority, but does that mean that safety is a value for them? Values are more stable and can be expected to have a more sustainable impact on safety than safety as “just a priority”. Particularly in an era of deregulation, globalization, economic downturn and the ‘changing world of work’, values and culture are more stable than mana- gement systems or priorities. There is often an imbalance between safety values and business values, leading to dilemmas and unsafe situations. By exploring safety values and dilemmas, this report provides insights into more successful mechanisms that have the potential to strengthen and promote safety values

Slotbijeenkomst RAAK-MKB Toekomstbestendig sociaal ondernemen (TBSO)

Afsluiting RAAK-MKB TBSO. Presentatie over de projecten van het lectoraat Juridische aspecten van ondernemerschap over sociaal ondernemerschap. O.a. Social Impact Beloond en Open Hiring

Why do organizations not learn from incidents? Bottlenecks, causes and conditions for a failure to effectively learn

If organizations would be able to learn more effectively from incidents that occurred in the past, future incidents and consequential injury or damage can be prevented. To improve learning from incidents, this study aimed to identify limiting factors, i.e. the causes of the failure to effectively learn. In seven organizations focus groups were held to discuss factors that according to employees contributed to the failure to learn. By use of a model of the learning from incidents process, the steps, where difficulties for learning arose, became visible, and the causes for these difficulties could be studied. Difficulties were identified in multiple steps of the learning process, but most difficulties became visible when planning actions, which is the phase that bridges the gap from incident investigation to actions for improvement. The main causes for learning difficulties, which were identified by the participants in this study, were tightly related to the learning process, but some indirect causes – or conditions – such as lack of ownership and limitations in expertise were also mentioned. The results illustrate that there are two types of causes for the failure to effectively learn: direct causes and indirect causes, here called conditions. By actively and systematically studying learning, more conditions might be identified and indicators for a successful learning process may be determined. Studying the learning process does, however, require a shift from learning from incidents to learning to learn

Assessing propensity to learn from safety-related events

International audienceMost organisations aim to use experience from the past to improve safety, for instance through learning from safety-related incidents and accidents. Whether an organisation is able to learn successfully can however only be determined afterwards. So far, there are no proactive measures to assess whether an organisation will be able to learn from experience, meaning whether an organisation has the propensity to learn. In this study we aimed to develop a set of indicators for the propensity to learn as part of the leading indicators for safety. To assess the propensity to learn, the individual perception of learning from experience is measured, through a set of indicators. These indicators are validated through interviews on a French production site. This organisation showed a high propensity to learn, despite some minor weaknesses with respect to involvement of employees and sharing information. On an individual level, 17% of the employees had a very positive attitude towards each step of the learning process. The proposed indicators could support the identification of weaknesses with respect to learning on an organisational level and they could facilitate the identification of training needs of the employees. Further development and tests of the indicators are however needed to apply them on a wider scale

Werken aan Talent in de Regio

Gezamenlijke workshop met als onderwerp Impactondernemen: anders werven, anders doorstromen, anders werken, anders organiseren met als 1e presentatie: Open Hiring - anders werven en als tweede presentatie: Samenwerking Loopbaantrajecten impact MKB (SLIM)<br/

Can we use near-miss reports for accident prevention?:A study in the Oil and Gas industry in Denmark

Background: The oil and gas industry in the Danish sector of the North Sea has always focused on reducing work-related accidents. Over the years, accident rates have been reduced, and near-miss reporting has gained in importance, because it allows the industry to learn from experience and prevent further accidents. Because of this importance, oil and gas companies use many resources to register and analyse near misses. The aim of this paper is to investigate near-miss reporting for the Danish offshore installations and to examine what the industry learns from near-miss reporting and how these reports can be used in the prevention of accidents. Data: Data are derived from three oil and gas companies in the Danish sector of the North Sea. The material consists of documentary data such as procedures and reports as well as interviews and a database including near-miss reports. The near misses have been divided into thematic groups, and two types of near misses were chosen for further analysis: gas leaks and person related incidents. Methods: Thematic analyses of documentary material, accident prevention procedures and selected near-miss cases. Results: The preliminary results show that all companies have procedures and systems for accident and near-miss reporting. The paper shows that there are challenges and barriers for the use of near-miss reporting systems with regard to learning and improving the safety of off-shore installations, and suggestions are made for improvements

Toekomstbestendig Sociaal Ondernemen : de balans tussen sociale en commerciële doelen : tien bedrijfscases

Dit rapport beschrijft de meervoudige waardepropositie van 10 sociale ondernemingen en uitdagingen die zij ervaren bij het nastreven van zowel de sociale als commerciële missie. Sociale ondernemingen zijn er in alle soorten en maten. Ze onderscheiden zich vooral van reguliere ondernemingen doordat ze missie gedreven zijn. Dit betekent dat winst geen doel op zich is, maar een middel om maatschappelijke meerwaarde te creëren. Tegelijkertijd is het wel belangrijk dat dit middel er is: voor het voortbestaan van de onderneming en om sociale impact te realiseren zijn altijd voldoende inkomsten nodig. Hierdoor ontstaat een dubbele missie: sociale ondernemingen zijn tegelijkertijd bezig met het creëren van maatschappelijke waarde én met het genereren van voldoende inkomsten. Deze sociale en commerciële missie zijn soms complementair, maar vaak strijden ze om dezelfde tijd, aandacht en middelen

Opschalen van sociale ondernemingen: groei in impact. Belangrijkste onderzoeksresultaten

Dit beknopte onderzoeksverslag presenteert de belangrijkste resultaten van het tweejarig onderzoeksproject naar de kansen en uitdagingen voor het opschalen van sociale ondernemingen gericht op arbeidsparticipatie van mensen met een grote afstand tot de arbeidsmarkt. In de afgelopen jaren is het aantal sociale ondernemingen wereldwijd sterk gegroeid. Sociale ondernemingen zoeken naar nieuwe economisch duurzame manieren om structurele maatschappelijke problemen aan te pakken die vaak buiten de directe aandacht en doelstellingen van de publieke en private sector vallen. Sociale ondernemingen zijn in de eerste plaats missiegedreven, waarbij winst geen doel op zich is maar een middel om sociale impact te creëren met betrekking tot een specifiek maatschappelijk probleem. De aanleiding voor dit onderzoek vormde het feit dat veel sociale ondernemingen, ondanks hun groeiambities, er nog onvoldoende in slagen om wat betreft hun maatschappelijke impact het lokale niveau te overstijgen. Het effectief realiseren van meervoudige waarde —sociaal en economisch— is niet eenvoudig. Zo hebben sociale ondernemingen over het algemeen te maken met een grotere verscheidenheid aan belanghebbenden, waardoor de activiteiten niet altijd even consistent zijn en doelstellingen soms zelfs met elkaar in strijd lijken

Nieuwe Banen Methodiek en WijkLeerbedrijf Zorg

Werkbedrijf Lelystad ontwikkelde samen met onderzoekers van Windesheim, TNO en de regionale werkgevers de Nieuwe Banenmethodiek om ervoor te zorgen dat de banengroei in Flevoland niet voorbij zou gaan aan de inwoners die al het langste langs de kant stonden. In deze methodiek vormen concrete, nieuwe banen die in de nabije toekomst ontstaan bij deelnemende regionale werkgevers het startpunt van een leerwerktraject. De resultaten staan nu beschreven in een handzame brochure 'Nieuwe Banenmethodiek en WijkLeerbedrijf Zorg' met de opbrengsten, lessen en een stappenplan. Centraal in de brochure staat de casus van het Lelystadse WijkLeerbedrijf voor de zorg. Dat is gestart als samenwerkingsverband tussen Werkbedrijf Lelystad, ROC van Flevoland, Woonzorg Flevoland, Coloriet, Triade Vitree en Stichting Calibris Advies