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Mācību pakalpojumu attīstīšana franšīzei un sociālajai uzņēmējdarbībai
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Project title: “Development of educational services for franchising and social entrepreneurship”. The Project is based on the requirement of Baltic Franchise Foundation’ staff to enlarge the scope and quality of specific competences in the field of franchising. BFF have established that the required knowledge cannot be acquired using the learning services available at national level. It has been noted that the amount of business disputes submitted to civil courts considerably lengthens the resolution process and increases the cost of settlement. In view of the incurred process length and high level of expenses, BFF has seen an increase of queries regarding options of mediation and support for out of court settlement of business conflicts. Requests have come from a wide range of business representatives not limited to franchising. All have expressed their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs and the legalistic approach. We believe that this method of efficient business conflicts resolution is required and have turned to business mediation as a solution. Business relations among Franchiser and Franchisee are explicitly asymmetric. BFF considers that deeper knowledge and skills of narrative coaching are needed to ensure that equal support is provided to both sides in franchise. That would include support on mobilizing internal and attracting external resources, conceptualizing, managing and initiating business processes at a new level of quality. The attention of BFF has been drawn towards social entrepreneurship widely spread in the EU and its offered possibilities of qualitative growth in form of Social licensing or franchise. While the concept of social entrepreneurship is yet to be defined by Latvian legislator, this Project aims to research EU’s social entrepreneurship experiences. The outcomes of the research would contribute to the facilitation of such enterprise establishment and development at national level. It would drive the further growth of social entrepreneurship facilitated by development social franchising or licensing models. To enable the activities, we would have to become knowledgeable and skillful in social enterprise management and the opportunities for improvement, understand the legal context of social enterprise; carry out a detailed examination of real life examples of social enterprise growth, research the strategies of integrated marketing communications within the field. Participants both have more than 20 years worth of experience in business management and consulting, and have been closely involved in franchising. Activities are firstly orientated towards acquiring comprehensive knowledge of business mediation in order to use the advantages of this method and spread these competences among business consultants and coaches. While popularity of narrative coaching is increasing activities in this respect will be oriented towards detailed learning of this method. We aim to use this approach when dealing with small and medium size enterprises, develop this knowledge for further dissemination beyond national borders. Other activities will be devoted to the acquisition of experience in the field of social entrepreneurship to help understand the social enterprise paradigm, answer the specific questions regarding the motivation of Stakeholders, intellectual property, growth prospects and the macroeconomic impact. The methodology used is both a qualitative and quantitative approach, for example, the establishment of appropriate focus groups and discussions within their remit, provision of the seminar sessions and finally the consistent application of SMART method to goal-setting. The Project aims to drive cooperation within a virtual environment, as well as include face to face collaboration with the European Social Franchising Network (ESFN), the national franchise associations, individual members of such organizations - companies, respectable business training and consulting companies. The result would be measured in the first instance by the increase in the overall scope and quality of participants’ competencies that are to be used in their everyday’s professional activities, as well as to ensure the dissemination of knowledge among partners and customers, including professionals outside the national scope. It would further be measured within the field of social entrepreneurship, where achievements will be marked by the increasing popularity of social entrepreneurship amidst so-called ‘new EU countries’. In medium and long term perspective the follow-up of the Project would entail the opportunity for the participants to make their own investment (social and material) in this business area. On the other hand, we aim to continue the collection and systematic study of social entrepreneurship experience in order to establish a model for growth using social franchise and/or social license means.
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