著者

藤田 晃

出版者

桜美林大学

雑誌

桜美林論考. ビジネスマネジメントレビュー (ISSN:21850658)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1, pp.99-114, 2010-03

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Social businesses solve social issues like those of education and welfare by business methods and are now a focus of attention in the world. In the United Kingdom, social businesses were nurtured as social enterprises to solve regional problems in 1997 when Tony Blair was the prime minister.One type of social enterprise is a social firm. The social firms are places of employment for people with disabilities and are managed by using business methods to solve their employment problem.In the United Kingdom, Social Firms UK is founded as intermediate organization to conduct national surveys of social firms and provide consultancy to them. According to the organization, there are about 70 social firms and about 80 emerging social firms in the United Kingdom.These social firms and emerging social firms are highlighted as places of employment for disabled people.In 2008, Social Firms UK selected five social firms with particularly excellent business activities and named them star social firms. In August and September 2009, the author had the occasion of interviewing two star social firms of contrasting sizes. The interview survey to the two star social firms offered several findings conducive to the development of places of employment for disabled people in Japan.