Maria Ballesteros - Sola

California State University, Channel Islands | CSUCI · Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics

One of the critiques of a discussion-based case study publication is that it is merely a good story. Another critique is that it lacks a theoretical contribution, and is not framed by previous research or literature. In addition, a case study is typically written for a traditional and physical business school classroom, which is increasingly not th...

The Refill Shoppe, located in Ventura (California), is a certified B Corp zero-waste social enterprise selling personal care and cleaning supplies in refillable containers. The founder, Michelle Stevens, grew up on a boat and became aware, at an early age, of how plastic pollution impacted the oceans and marine life. In 2010, her love for the Earth...

This case involves Rob Taylor, Founding Chairman, and Tracy Hackland, CEO of Columba Leadership, an award-winning South African non-profit organization, pondering a strategic question in March 2018. Columba Leadership was a non-profit values-based youth program that had facilitated individual change in the African country since 2009. By February 20...

A growing number of organizations are incorporating corporate social responsibility into their strategy and operations. Such organizations distinguish themselves as having a triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit. Certification systems guide organizations in their journeys toward becoming sustainable businesses and permit them to differenti...

In responding to the increasing plurality of research on B Corps, this paper development workshop aims to help the research community define and push boundaries of B Corps research, especially as related to empirical methods and research design. We invite your submissions for this workshop. You can submit a long abstract (1000-1500 words) of a wor...

In 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. was the largest for-profit post-secondary education company in the world, with almost one million students enrolled in more than 50 institutions across 20+ countries. During that year, this multinational corporation was considering modifying its legal status to become a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) in Delaware (...

We conducted an exploratory multicase study of necessity female microentrepreneurs in developing contexts to validate an existing theoretical model and to identify relevant omitted variables. Using a sample of eight necessity female entrepreneurs in Tijuana (Mexico), we were able to challenge the established pull-push framework in entrepreneurship...

This case involves Rob Taylor, Founding Chairman of Columba Leadership, an award-winning South African non-profit organization, pondering a strategic question in March 2018. Columba Leadership was a non-profit values-based youth program that had facilitated individual change in the African country since 2009. By February 2018, Columba Leadership ha...

This year's theme is "Seeing the Full Picture: Drivers, Processes and Outcomes of the B Corp Movement." The event will be held on September 16, 2019, in Los Angeles, California, in conjunction with the B Lab Champions Retreat.

This case is based on Coding Autism, a limited liability company founded in April 2017 and located in Westlake Village (California). The case features the decision process followed by the cofounder, Oliver Thornton regarding the opportunity to seek B Corp certification. B Corp is a certification granted by the nonprofit B Lab founded in Philadelphi...

Mission statements are widely considered an effective strategic and communication tool in all types of organization. Specifically, mission statements are also relevant in social enterprises. Our study examines and describes the mission statements in a sample of 117 Spanish social enterprises and compares them with previous research on US-based soci...

The concept of Yunus Social Business is taught in multiple universities across the world. California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI) has been offering courses and a Minor in Social Business since 2010. The Social Business courses at CSUCI integrate semester-long Service Learning projects as a key experiential component that facilitates and...

Purpose In recent years, there has been a growing number of projects and organisations self-labelled as a Grameen or Yunus Social Business (YSB). The model has attracted the interest of media, academic researchers and practitioners. This paper presents a theoretical model to frame the diverse phenomena of Yunus Social Business, reviewing its differ...

This chapter reviews some of the most well-known social business cases as well as social business literature, complemented with qualitative interviews with social business entrepreneurs and practitioners to identify common challenges, risks and opportunities from a management and financial perspective. An analysis of that literature and these inter...