MG4H2E      Half Unit
Foundations of Social Business II

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

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      The social business, as any other firm, has to understand its environment and undertake consequent activities to enable sustainability and effectiveness; this challenge is complicated by the requirement to achieve not only profit or financial sustainability, but also environmental sustainability and mission-driven social impact.  Foundations of Social Business II specifically introduces students to three critical aspects of this interaction between the social business and its environment: social finance; marketing; and technology.   

The course focuses on the opportunities for and external constraints on social business.  Its purpose is to introduce students to the environment of both opportunity and threat in which pro-social business exists.  A primary challenge for any social business is funding. The course looks in detail at the varieties of financing available to social ventures (impact finance, social finance, grant finance), and introduces emerging social finance mechanisms that are enabling innovative collaborations and resourcing to solve social problems.  Social businesses must be able to analyse and respond to the markets in which they are situated, and the course explores the concepts and tools of marketing.  Finally, no business, whether social or commercial, can ignore the emerging importance of technology as an opportunity and perhaps a threat.  The course explores the use of technology, including AI, to analyse and to respond to complex task environments; it explores the potential for technology to improve the internal productivity of the firm including through radical decentralisation of the organisation.

This course might use Cadmus for submitting assessments. This platform is currently being evaluated by LSE for AI-resilient assessment. For more information, visit Cadmus Assessment Edit Tracking - Guidance for Students.

Ten integrated lectures / seminars of three hours each, delivered across two modules (teaching blocks)

One formative assessment exercise will be offered: a practice essay.

• James Austin, Howard Stevenson and Jane Wei-Skillern. (2006). ‘Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Same, Different, or Both?’ Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 30(1)
• M. Tina Dacin, Peter A. Dacin and Paul Tracey (2011). ‘Social Entrepreneurship: A Critique and Future Directions’. Organization Science 22(5): 1203-1213
• Angela Eikenberry and Jodie Drapal Kluver. (2004). ‘The Marketization of the Nonprofit Sector: Civil Society at Risk?’ Public Administration Review 64(2):  132-140
• Allman, Keith A. and Ximena Escobar De Nogales (2015). Impact Investment: A Practical Guide to Investment Process and Social Impact Analysis. Hoboken, New Jersey
• Nicholls, Alex and Jed Emerson (2015). "Social Finance, Capitalizing Social impact".  In Alex Nicholls, Rob Paton and Jed Emerson (eds) Social Finance. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Essay (100%)

Assessment will be through an individual coursework assignment (100%) comprised of 2 essay questions.