General Management Department's Lecture

Theme：The Social Sector in Transition: Opportunities for Academics, Practitioners and Policy Planners

Speaker：Dr Jay Weerawardena (Associate Professor of Strategic Marketing UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia)

Time：2019-04-03 14:30

Address：Room 1008, Mingde Business Building

Language：English

Abstract：
Whilst the contribution of the social sector to the economy and societal well-being is growing in significance, the sector is in rapid transition. The increased competition for philanthropic funding and depleted direct support from governments have forced the actors within the sector to be entrepreneurial and innovative in all their strategic initiatives. Reflecting on this urgent need, actors are increasingly moving onto income generating activities that sometimes have come into conflict with their social mission. Interestingly, while some of the conventional non-profits will struggle to remain within their trusted support sources, others are experimenting many business models to deliver greater social value to their targeted communities while remaining economically viable. As a result, new business models of social enterprises and social businesses have gained prominence. In the far right-end of this continuum, corporations are seeking the expertise of the social entrepreneurs in developing high-impact CSR initiatives and increasingly see the value of corporate social innovation (CSI) opportunities to remain competitive in their chosen strategic groups. Overall the sector provides challenging opportunities to scholars, practitioners and policy planners.

Short biography：
Dr Jay Weerawardena is Associate Professor of Strategic Marketing at UQ Business School, University of Queensland. His core research area is the role of dynamic capabilities in innovation-based firm competitive advantage. He has extensively published in reputed journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and Industrial Marketing Management. Over the last decade, Jay has expanded his research into the fast growing social sector and his pioneering papers on social entrepreneurship, social innovation and social value creation have made a notable impact to advance the social entrepreneurship field. Last year the Google Scholar awarded the Classic Paper status in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation field to his highly cited (2006) co-authored paper. Investigating Social Entrepreneurship: A Multidimensional Model. Journal of World Business. He has delivered many invited presentations including the plenary presentation at the 2014 Oxford University Research Colloquium on Social Entrepreneurship and a special topic session at the 2015 Social Entrepreneurship Conference, New York. He is currently active in research on business model innovation (BMI) in social purpose organizations.