Social companies as an innovative and sustainable way of solving social problems. A case study from Spain.

In the current context of economic crisis, there is an increasing need for new approaches for solving social problems without relying upon public resources. With this regard, social entrepreneurship has been arising as an important solution to develop social innovations and address social needs. Social entrepreneurs found new ventures that aim at solving social problems. The main purpose of this research is to identify the general profile of the social entrepreneurs and the main features of social companies, such as geographic scope, profit or non-profit approach, collaborative networks, decision making structure, and typologies of customers that benefit from their social actions.

Fashion in Actions on Social Media – Spanish SME Fashion Brands Case Studies

Fashion is one of the most vibrant sectors in Europe and important contributors to the European Union (EU) economy. In particular, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a major part in European fashion industry (EU 2012). Just like fashion, where people¿s style has inherently meant to be shared as it is foremost a representation of one¿s self-image, social media allow the reflection of ones' personality and emotions. Although fashion practitioners have embraced social media in their marketing activities, it is still relatively few known at an academic level about the specificities of fashion industry when approaching social media marketing (SMM) strategies. This study sets out to explore fashion companies' SMM strategy and its activities. From an exploratory approach, we present case studies of two Spanish SME fashion companies, anonymously named hereafter as Company A and Company B, to deepen our understanding on how fashion brands implement their SMM strategy. Company A offers high-end fashion products while Company B produces medium fashion products. We analyzed the case studies using qualitative (interviews to companies' executives) and a mix of qualitative and quantitative (content analysis of companies' social media platform) methods. Public posts data of both companies' Facebook brand pages were used to perform the content analysis. Our findings through case studies of the two companies reveal that branding-oriented strategic objectives are the main drivers of their SMM implementations. There are significant differences between both companies. The main strategic action employed by Company A is engaging customers to participate into brand's offline social gathering events by inviting them through social media platform, while Company B focuses its effort on posting product promotion related contents and engaging influencers such as fashion bloggers. Our results are expected to serve as a basis of further investigations on how SMM strategy and strategic actions implemented by fashion brands may influence marketing outcomes.

The Role of ICT in Scaling Up the Impact of Social Enterprises

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can help social enterprises and other organizations working on global sustainability issues and in the human development sector in general scale their social impact. The flexibility, dynamism, and ubiquity of ICTs make them powerful tools for improving relationships among organizations and their beneficiaries, multiplying the effects of action against many, if not all, aspects of global unsustainability, including poverty and exclusion. The scaling of social impact occurs in two different dimensions. On one hand, ICTs can increase the value proposition of a program or action (depth scaling) in different ways: providing accurate and fast needs recognition, adapting products and services, creating opportunities, building fairer markets, mobilizing actions on environmental and social issues, and creating social capital. On the other hand, ICTs can also increase the number of people reached by the organization (breadth scaling) by accessing new resources, creating synergies and networks, improving organizational efficiency, increasing its visibility, and designing new access channels to beneficiaries. This article analyzes the role of ICT in the depth and breadth scaling of social impact.

Fuel poverty as a determinant in energy retrofitting actions

Fuel poverty can be defined as “the inability to afford adequate warmth in the home" and it is the result of the combination of three items: low household income, housing lack of energy efficiency and high energy bills. Although it affects a growing number of households within the European Union only some countries have an official definition for it. In 2013, the European Parliament claimed the Commission and Estate Members to develop different policies in order to fight household energy vulnerability. The importance of tackling fuel poverty is based on the critical consequences it has for human health living below certain temperatures. In Spain some advances have been made in this field but main existing studies remain at the statistical level and do not deepen the understanding of the problem from the perspective of dwelling indoor habitability conditions. What is more, this concept is yet to be officially defined. This paper presents the evaluation of fuel poverty in a building block of social housing located in the centre of Zaragoza and how this issue determined the strategies implemented in the energy retrofitting intervention project. At a first step, fuel poverty was appraised through the exploration of indoor thermal conditions. The adaptive thermal comfort (UNE-EN 15251:2008) method was used to establish the appropriate indoor temperatures and consequently to determine what can be called 'comfort gap'. Results were collated and verified with energy bills collection and a survey work that gathered data from neighbours. All this permitted pointing out those households more in need. Results from the social analysis combined with the evaluation of the building thermal performance determined the intervention. The renovation project was aimed at the implementation of passive strategies that improve households thermal comfort in order to alleviate households fuel poverty situation. This research is part of the project NewSolutions4OldHousing (LIFE10 ENV/ES/439) cofounded by the European Commission under the LIFE+ Programme.

Energy rehabilitation of social housing for rent, as demonstrator in the LIFE 'New4Old' Project

The main goal of the cofounded by the European Commission LIFE Project, New4Old (LIFE10 ENV/ES/439), is to define the most appropriate method and the best available practice in social housing rehabilitation with energy and environmental sustainability criteria, as well as to apply innovative technologies in the fight against climate change through an efficient use of resources and energy. The institutions involved in the Project are the Technological Centre AITEMIN, Madrid Polytechnic University (UPM), Portugal Technological Centre for Ceramics and Glass (CTCV) and the Zaragoza City Housing Society (SMZV). The demonstrator project consists in the energy rehabilitation of a rental social housing building located in Zaragoza?s historic quarter, according to the conclusions and strategies developed for the LIFE project. In actions taken in households of this nature passive design strategies are essential due to the limited income of owners, who often cannot afford energy bills. Therefore, the proposed actions will help improve the building?s passive performance and reach a higher thermal comfort, without increasing the economic cost linked to energy consumption.

Empresa y movilidad en el marco del fenómeno Social Media

Pocos mercados en la historia han evolucionado tanto en los últimos años como los relacionados con la movilidad. La necesidad en la sociedad actual de descontextualizar el lugar de trabajo y abrirse hacia un mercado más amplio, ha obligado a las empresas a replantearse cómo adaptar sus modelos de negocios a estas demandas. Algunas empresas aún no se muestran abiertas a estos cambios mientras que en otras se ha materializado, en muchos casos, en la integración de aplicaciones móviles como vía fácil, rápida y cómoda de conexión con el cliente y de interconexión y participación interna en la empresa. Se generan así aplicaciones móviles que permiten crear y mantener una relación utilizándolas como la mejor herramienta de fidelización, posicionando a la marca y ofreciendo una imagen de innovación. Las aplicaciones móviles requieren que el desarrollo de los sistemas sean rápidos, que puedan manejar una gran variedad de acciones sin un alto conocimiento a priori de ellas, que necesiten un número mínimo de parámetros, y que las actualizaciones se realicen de manera tan corta como fuera posible. Este nuevo modelo de negocio ofrece servicios especiales a los clientes, permite obtener sus opiniones, facilita la compra online, auto-gestiona los servicios ofrecidos, aumenta la agilidad en el negocio, motiva su recomendación a otros potenciales clientes y desde la libertad, permite elegir el mejor momento y lugar para llevar a cabo una actividad de manera rápida y efectiva. Se constata el incremento en los ingresos derivados de la incorporación de esta herramienta apostando así por este nuevo modelo de negocio. ABSTRACT. A few market forces have developed in history as much as the present ones regarding mobility. Nowadays the need to set the workplace out of a context and open a wider market in society has made the companies raise again how to adapt their business models to these demands. Some companies haven’t shown this need to change yet. On the contrary, in some others, the change is already a fact. In many cases, it has been materialized the integration of mobile applications not only as an easy, quick and comfortable way to be connected with the client, but also as the interconnection and inner participation in a company. Thus, it is generated a series of mobile applications which allow us to create and keep a relationship by using them as the best tool of fidelity, positioning the trademark and offering an innovation image. Mobile applications require a rapid development of the systems and the management of a great variety of actions without their previous knowledge. Moreover, a minimum range of parameters is needed and updating must be done as soon as possible. This new business role offers the clients some especial services. It permits us to obtain their opinions, expedite online shopping and the self- management of the offered services. It also improves business agility, motivates the reccomendation to other possible clients and it freely let us choose both the best moment and place to carry out an activity rapidly and precisely. It is proved the increasing income derived from the incorporation of this appliance relying on the new business model.