Social Entrepreneurship: A Case Study on Fairphone's Challenges

This case study examines Fairphone, a social enterprise founded by Bas van Abel, focusing on the challenges it faces in the realm of social entrepreneurship. The report delves into the company's mission to create ethical and sustainable smartphones, analyzing the entrepreneurial traits exhibited by Fairphone and the obstacles it encounters, including funding, communication of its social value, and maintaining commitment to its mission. The analysis explores the challenges related to mineral exploitation, competition, and maintaining a balance between profitability and environmental impact. The report also highlights the strategies Fairphone employs to overcome these hurdles, such as crowd-funding and emphasis on ethical practices, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of technology and a strong social commitment to overcome the challenges and achieve success in social entrepreneurship. The company is working on enhancing civil contacts and communications to manage the challenges related with social entrepreneurship. Fairphone is situated in Amsterdam in Netherlands. It is founded by Bas van Abel in the month of January in year 2013 and had a mission to manufacture cool smart phones where social value is the first priority and focus of the firm.

Social Enterpreneurship
Author’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...............................................................................................................................2
Introduction............................................................................................................................................4
Entrepreneur Analysis............................................................................................................................4
Challenges of Social Entrepreneurship..................................................................................................6
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................................7
References..............................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
The genre of entrepreneurship is related to the entire procedure of designing, launching and
operating a business enterprise irrespective of the size and scope of an enterprises and also
embracing the financial risks associated with a goal to earn better profits. Company Fairphone is
working over enhancing the civil contacts and communications to manage the challenges related
with social entrepreneurship (Tombs, 2020). Case study of Fairphone is examining and exploring the
emergence and the challenges related with start-up social enterprise. Fairphone is situated in
Amsterdam in Netherlands. It is founded by Bas van Abel in the month of January in year 2013 and
had a mission to manufacture cool smart phones where social value is the first priority and focus of
the firm (Fairphone, 2020). This report aims in analysing the Fairphone case.
Entrepreneur Analysis
On observing different industries, it is found that an entrepreneur dominant company needs to put a
lot of emphasis on varied traits. Sometime it is the strong skill set which is needed for the workforce
where power signifies motivating and inspiring them to work in a desired manner.
Traits and Characteristics Fairphone entrepreneur exemplifies
Fair phone entrepreneur showcases the following traits which has helped them progress in their path
towards successful social entrepreneurship.
a) Vision and passion: An ideal entrepreneur is one who possesses a very clear and transparent
vision about the business enterprise. Entrepreneurs like Bas van Abel needs to plan their short- and
long-term objectives and mapping varied steps with which he or she can achieve their future plans
efficiently (Akemu, Whiteman and Kennedy, 2016).
b) Eagerness to break rules: When a business aims to attain a better position in the market, it must
chalk out some goals and parameters which are solely customised and tailor made for the respective
enterprises. Fairphone for an example has followed strong ethical and moral ethical approach when
running their business. However, in matters such as mineral exploitation they are facing conflicts.
c) Strong work-related ethics: Fairphone has claimed that it is a socially responsible organisation.
The company products smart phones but associates enormous human and social value in the entire
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process (Akemu and Whiteman, 2018). However, there is lack of expertise in social entrepreneurship
and hence it is not able to place the right traits at the right place effectively.
d) Competitive feeling: Fairphone business enterprise is managing competition in the middle level
range as it prices its phone product well through an optimised supply chain and manufacturing
process. The firm has made considerable improvements to develop better work conditions and
enhance its profitability by focusing on quality and user-friendly elements.
e) Confidence level: An entrepreneur needs to have a very high level of confidence in them. In fact
it is a primary element which helps them make the right decisions. Far phone believe sin CSR or
corporate social reasonability and hence the entrepreneur makes inspirational designs, uses fair
labour, work conditions, materials and ensures that the products are recyclable or reusable (Dr. H.
Ramananda Singh and Rahman, 2016).
f) Determination level: Case study Fairphone enterprise entrepreneur has lunched crowd funding
campaigns. The determination level of the enterprise is extremely ambitious where the entrepreneur
aims in selling over25000 products to its customer within a short time.
g) Strong practical work skills: This entrepreneurship trait focuses majorly over the
communication element. Fairphone entrepreneur has strong working skills and communication skills.
The entrepreneur is the primary motivator who can communicate and convince the mangers and
leaders and the customer extremely well. The firm in fact has organisations in China and Singapore
to help them manufacture products and parts to cut down on expenses and ensure high quality. They
are engaged in feedbacks and surveys constantly to achieve better feedback from users so that they
can enhance the product quality (Abdulwahab and Damen, 2016).
h) Achievement of value: Fairphone case study enterprise aims to earn profits and enhance the
profit margins extensively. The company is witnessing loss in the area of mineral exploration and
hence it is focusing more on ensuring how it can manage waste and embrace new steps to recycle its
phone product.
Challenges of Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship is engaged with a large range of varied social initiatives which are
innovative and are valuable for non-profit and voluntary enterprises specifically (Huybrechts and
Nicholls, 2015). Fairphone, in order to survive sustainability needs to focus in two aspects with a
balanced approach. First it needs to ensure that profit targets are met and secondly the environmental
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aspects are taken care of. Mineral exploitation is something where the company is facing a lot of
challenge at the moment. Being a social entrepreneurship busies it hence needs to manage this area
effectively. The organisation is facing the following challenges with respect to social
entrepreneurship.
a) Funding challenges: Fairphone business organisations are running a crowd funding campaign as
evident from the website during the mid-months of year 2013. The main aim of the organisation was
pre-selling over 5000 Fair Company made smart phones. The organisation also requires focusing
over the investors who will approach. It is indeed a big challenge to develop a positive awareness for
smart phone products in the campaign (Seda and Ismail, 2019). The company is working on focusing
on small range of people first to raise the awareness about selling the smart phones which the firm
has produced.
b) Communication of the value: Enhancing and spreading the communication of the company
social value is another challenge for the case study enterprises. The firm has launched itself as a
social entrepreneur. The firm wants to lower the environmental impact and at the same time in a
marginalised society enhance the sale of its smart phones (Gandhi and Raina, 2018). Communicating
the message of developing sustainable product which has minimum impact on the environment is a
challenge. There is insufficient team members with the right kind of skills which will help in
conducting the social entrepreneurship communication to the world.
c) Being truthful and committed about the company mission: For Fairphone social enterprise the
focus has always been to design long lasting products, ensuing that material used is fair and also
ensuring that the work conditions offered to the staff members is fair in all sense. Technology is used
effectively to create products which can be recycled and reused repeatedly (Biedenkopf, Van Eynde
and Bachus, 2018). The firm has a strong ethical standard which ensures that minimum emission is
created on the environment. It is however a big challenge to be socially committed in this manner for
long term. The factor workers and staff of Fairphone need to work on combining effective
technology and come up with ethical production and promotion.
For social enterprises with a social motive it is important to develop a strategic process to fight
against all kind of challenges with respect to social entrepreneurship. Strategies developed must be
reviewed and work processes are required to be improved to manage the organisational activities and
its impact. Bas van Abel the Fairphone company entrepreneur can fight the challenge by getting
skilled and talented volunteers who will join hands in the production. The product manufactured by
the company must be environment friendly
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Conclusion
Fairphone business is a non-profit concern which has been working constantly to enhance the social
pattern the firm is following to become better and stronger in the market. The form aims in providing
its customers and the community a much better experience. This will be helpful if the firm uses
technology in its side to enhance the social brand image in the industry. The firm has been facing
issues and challenges with respect to the environment footprint of human right abuses. A strong
social entrepreneurship with some inherent traits will be planning a better approach to develop
Fairphone an effective social firm.
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References
Akemu, O., Whiteman, G. and Kennedy, S., 2016. Social Enterprise Emergence from Social
Movement Activism: The Fairphone Case. Journal of Management Studies, 53(5), pp.846-877.
Abdulwahab, M. and Damen, D., 2016. The Impact of Entrepreneurs’ Characteristics on Small
Business Success at Medical Instruments Supplies Organizations in Jordan. International Journal of
Business and Social Science, 6(15), pp.20-21.
Akemu, O. and Whiteman, G., 2018. Fairphone: Organising for Sustained Social
Impact. Department of Business & Society Management, 2(1), pp.2-3.
Biedenkopf, K., Van Eynde, S. and Bachus, K., 2018. Environmental, climate and social leadership
of small enterprises: Fairphone’s step-by-step approach. Environmental Politics, 28(1), pp.43-63.
Dr. H. Ramananda Singh, D. and Rahman, H., 2016. Traits of Successful
Entrepreneurs. International Journal of Scientific Research, 2(11), pp.292-294.
Fairphone, 2020. Fairphone | The Phone That Cares For People And Planet. [online] Available at:
<https://www.fairphone.com/en/> [Accessed 6 April 2020].
Gandhi, T. and Raina, R., 2018. Social entrepreneurship: the need, relevance, facets and
constraints. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research volume, 1(1), pp.5-6.
Huybrechts, B. and Nicholls, A., 2015. Social Entrepreneurship: Definitions, Drivers and
Challenges. Social Entrepreneurship and Social Business, 2(1), pp.31-48.
Seda, A. and Ismail, M., 2019. Challenges facing social entrepreneurship. Review of Economics and
Political Science, 5(2), pp.162-182.
Tombs, J., 2020. Fairphone, The Ethical Cell Phone, Wants To Change The Future Of Smartphones.
[online] Study Breaks. Available at: <https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/is-fairphone-changing-the-
future-of-smartphones/> [Accessed 6 April 2020].
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