Week9: New Products and Entrepreneurship by Kenneth

Reflection on Reading:

• Collective Responsibility Social Innovation in China

This reading answers my question about social enterprises in China: “how they survive without making profits from a business”. We have many guest speakers from social enterprises in China such as UseDem, Collective Responsibility, and Precious Plastic Shanghai. When they came to give a presentation. I always have the questions that “where your money from” and “how you make money”. Now I understand that those social enterprises are companies. They make their own business model and make money from it. The only difference compared to normal companies is that the profits they get from businesses are all put into social innovation and devote to social impact. In the past, social enterprises were hard to survive because everyone was dedicated to making money. Even the country tried to sacrifice the environment for economic growth. So there were few corporations between SEs and government. For now, it is better because the focus of the country has shifted to environment protection and the friendly relationship between SEs and government is emphasized. However, as the reading says, “Both structures and processes are still in the early phases, with lack of sophistication models, highly risk-averse, and fear of trusting others to protect the brand or vision. ” It means that the current status of Chinese SEs is immature. We are still on the way of promoting social innovation. Interestingly, I find out that our guest speakers all come from foreign SEs. That is just what the reading mentions, for now, “the most successful examples of social franchising in China are also foreign models that introduced and established by China-based social enterprises.” I am looking forward to seeing more successful local SEs make a greater social impact on Chinese society.

 

• Multiple-Helix Collaboration for the Development of a Circular Economy

This reading mainly shows different roles in social innovation. I was impressed by the Government, the Public, University. Here are some quotations that I take down showing the function of each role in social innovation.

Government

–“The reason behind the need for government investments is the very large amount of financing necessary to drive the development of new technologies and systems from the first prototypes to the stage where technologies become inexpensive general purpose technologies.”

–“For this reason, governments and other high-level decision makers need to keep abreast of development, which leads to a demand for ongoing monitoring of progress and a bird’s eye view of the different steps in combination with attention to detail. ”

 

University

–“Universities and research institutes play important roles in this development from the early stages when cutting-edge research contributes to identifying opportunities and to the development of technologies and business offerings, to later stages when companies need to hire an increasing number of engineers, people with business degrees, and specialists in other fields.”

 

–“Another role carried by universities, schools, and companies specializing in training is to supply companies and organizations with competent personnel and providing training services for professionals.”

 

Non-governmental organization

–“These organizations take on important roles in the innovation system: organizing clusters of companies and partner organizations, running projects for research and training, and identifying opportunities for development. Non-government organizations can function as a tool for companies or interest groups to get things done that are outside of the scope of company strategies and activities, and they are often focused on driving activities in a particular area of development. ”

 

Individuals

–“Now and then individuals play important roles in development projects, as people are the consumers and users of products and services. Through purchases, people every day decide which companies to support.”

So I get the conclusion that social innovation should include all the aspects of society into the corporation. 

Reflection on Workshop:

I really love this workshop. In this workshop, I took part in the plastic segregation for the first time. I realize that what types of plastic are usually recycled and what types cannot be recycled. For the product guest speaker made, I was really impressed by the thick colorful card.

 \

So it is type four. It is unique because it gets a special texture and it feels smooth. I want to text it in the future.