A Preliminary Study of Social Enterprises in Taiwan:With Focus in Senior Care Industry

• Main Authors: Ping-Ping Wang, 王蘋蘋
• Other Authors: 謝明慧
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/37q2n6

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國際企業管理組 === 104 === While the global economy is growing rapidly and technology is advancing in each passing day, these changes may seem to bring our world unlimited benefits but in the meantime we are also seeing pollution, inequality, global warming, aging seniors, racism…etc. issues accompanied by these changes. Social enterprises established during end of last century in US and Europe try to solve some of these issues by selling products and services. Unlike government, charity and Non-Profit Organization, these social enterprises make profits via commercial operations and use the profits to solve social problems and/or giving to charity at the same time. In recent years, social enterprises in Taiwan were able to establish sustainable business to help improve social problems and their impact to our society. Each of the stake holders in this eco system formed by these social enterprises played various roles in communication, consulting, financial and counseling support and community building, these social enterprises started a new wave of influences to the overall social enterprise development and solutions to associated social problems. Compared to western social enterprises that are developed with abundant resources and on much bigger scale, most social enterprises in Taiwan are on the contrary developed with limited resources and much smaller. To learn from geographic, cultural and population similarities like Japan, Hong Kong and Korea can be another option other than being a western follower. Seniors aging at a high speed is a world-wide issue with Taiwan being forecasted to face it in 2025. We just passed Long-term care law in 2015. Before everything else can fall in line with the law passed, Taiwan economy can be dragged down by increasing number of aging seniors considering there is more said than done. In order to complete our research, we have interviewed more than 20 relevant individuals dedicated to the development of social enterprises in Taiwan. Our findings are exciting that although not much support provided, there are quite some numbers of social enterprises successfully established and growing strong. We would like to mention especially iHealth that solved the unfair prescription services issue, Deufo that provided handicapped people innovative transportation services, Mabow that brings family member type of care to elderly, and X4GPS that does the real CSR on demand. “Taiwan Technology Island” focus can be followed by newly developed aging seniors market as part of smart health sector. This newly developed business can have positive influence on social economy, job opportunities and aging society healthcare that leads to diversified needs and output values. We hope to bring together the younger generation with technology innovations and the capable retirees with tremendous business management experience and take on more new initiatives in social enterprises era to come.