Among main currents of economic system thinking, a new trend of community approach is emerging along with the traditional theories of market and planned economy. Community is the kind of social systems composed of humanistic interactions among people who keep small number of common values, which are found and held by moral dialogue. The interactions are made possible through several kinds of media, by which members in a society are connected. In addition to the so-called traditional money, new sorts of media can be introduced into economic systems. The ideas of LETS, like eco-money, will develop to construct economic systems, which emphasizes community, not market.

View full abstract

The core of comprehensive evaluation of Co-op-Kobe is to evaluate the businesses and activities of consumer co-operatives by evaluation indexes prepared from statistical data. There are six indexes in total and these belong either to "Basic Values" or "Management Foundations." Indexes belonging to "Basic Values" are indexing of values of co-operatives, emphasized by ICA. Other "Management Foundations" means foundations for realizing basic values. In order to increase the credibility of the comprehensive evaluation, a survey is conducted every year. The statistical method used is the "Standardized Index" to compile data of a different nature in computation of the indexes derived from the data. In the section 3, we take up the characteristic portion of 30 evaluation items, 6 evaluation indexes and 2 evaluation axes for a period between the base year of 1996 and 2001 to see how the indexes have changed. In the section 4, the relationship between basic values and management foundations is considered. In the section 5, the system of participation in the comprehensive evaluation by the co-operative stakeholders is shown. In the last section, the process of improvement of the method with an impact toward other co-operative is explained.

View full abstract

First, this paper showed the historical and present circumstances of the partnership theory in Britain. And it focused on the Compact which is the agreement of the government and the voluntary sector in Britain, and the actual condition was introduced, giving the example of a Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. Furthermore, positioning of the partnership model was discussed from the viewpoint of local governance, and the subject and its evaluation were discussed. Although the partnership model which includes outside environment is inevitable to be complicated, it is necessary to create a new evaluation model for an improvement of community benefit.

View full abstract

We are facing the negative aspects of globalization, for instance, 1) global environmental issues across the borders, 2) poverty and human rights problems in developing countries, 3) decline of local community and unemployment problems in developed countries. In the era of globalization, government is becoming too small to treat the big problems across the borders and at the same time too big to treat the minor problems in the local community. Government sector cannot provide a solution to those problems by itself. We are expecting a new roll of NPO/NGOs (civil society organizations) to overcome the problems. NPO/NGOs have developed their organizations, expertise and network. We basically categorize NPO/NGOs into 3 types: 1) charity-type, 2) critical/watchdog-type, 3) social business-type. It is important theme to address the social problems by the collaboration among government, business, and NPO/NGO. However, in our country, at first it is crucial subject to support the NPO/NGO by government and business sectors, because they are still immature. To make a new collaboration style, each sectors, government, business, intermediate organizations, university have their own tasks to be solved. In particular, NPO/NGOs are to develop their management capacity (human resources, fund raising, networking etc.), and support organizations are to develop their supporting capacity and matching system. In order to design a new collaboration, it is important firstly to understand the cultural differences among sectors. And it needs to set up a common strategic plan, an elaborate communication system, and an evaluation system of their outcome.

View full abstract

The main purpose of this article is to discuss the relationship between welfare society and welfare regime. First, we introduce the theories of welfare state by Wilensky,H. and Esping-Andersen,G., and clarify the various concepts of welfare society. Second, we formalize the welfare regime consisting of state, market, family, and non-profit organization by the social system theory. Third, we consider the various risks and needs in the welfare society and clarify the meanings of needs and functionings by Sen,A. Fourth, we discuss the methods and criteria of policy evaluation from the viewpoints of efficiency and equity.

View full abstract

We have to reconsider the characteristics and roles of three sectors; the public sector, business enterprises, and the third sector (so called "social economy"). We have considered the above-mentioned characteristics and roles on the basis of the typology developed by Polanyi: "redistribution"=the public sector, "exchange"=markets, and "reciprocity"=the association (the third sector). This typology is based on the various forms of ownership. However, the ownership has lost or attenuated its decisive role in many aspects of the economy, as the material-based economy has changed to the information-based economy. Both in the public sector and in business enterprises in markets, citizens' participation and worker participation will make good progress. So, in a sense, association-ship will prevail in various types in all sectors. Considering the above-mentioned situation, we develop the new idea, the need-led typology. Each sector should be identified on the base of the type of need satisfied by the agents in that sector.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to extract factors of volunteer satisfaction from the viewpoint which looks on volunteers as customers of programs. To retain volunteers and keep high quality of service, NPOs need to pursue volunteer satisfaction. Most of former studies about volunteer management have looked on volunteers as only human resources, and volunteer satisfaction has been argued from the viewpoint of job satisfaction. And those studies have assumed that volunteers belong to organizations. But some volunteers who are interested in only their activities have mobility and emotional aspect in regard to their participation to programs. Therefore, such volunteers can be looked on rather as customers than as human resources, and volunteer satisfaction need to be grasped comprehensively. In this study the author undertook a survey, and extracted satisfying factors and dissatisfying factors. Especially empathical factor had a great impact to volunteer satisfaction. Empathical factor may change the volunteer's value, promote his/her empathy itself, and give him/her a greater satisfaction. Therefore it follows that volunteer satisfaction can be pursued compatibly with NPO's organizational purpose.

View full abstract

In 1990 the Japanese semiconductor industry maintained a strong competitiveness. For example, a list of top five DRAM-makers of the world included three Japanese makers. In 2001, however, there remained only one Japanese maker in the list. In this paper we first surveyed opinions that explained a process Japanese semiconductor makers lost their competitiveness. Next we turned our attention to a relation between the decline process and the role of intermediate organizations. It is an important role of intermediate organizations to let their members share a common story. In Japan, intermediate organizations tend to reinforce homogeneity among their members. Japanese semiconductor makers held a common scenario that ruined them after all. We pointed out here that, under the Japanese patent system, it was an efficient strategy to share a common story, and to promote research and development side by side.

View full abstract

This study introduces the concept of brand community and proposes a model of the prominent brand community. A brand community is a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admires of a brand. The concept of brand community consists of three aspects: shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility. On a process of building a brand community, business enterprises present the common value to be shared to the members in a brand community and the members share it with the other members as well as with the business enterprise. The application of a brand community to marketing management, especially on the Internet community strategy, is significant for business enterprises. Finally, maintaining and developing activation of a brand community lead business enterprises to the successful business opportunities.

View full abstract

In the early 1980s, Niklas Luhmann introduced autopoiesis theory to sociology and redefined social systems concept as systems of communication. In this paper, by referring to Gordon Pask's "Conversation Theory", which Luhmann also referred to, we examine why Luhmann attached importance to the communication concept. The reason lies in that we can understand stability of social systems not as an equilibrium or regulation but as a continuous process of communication by using autopoietic model of social systems.

View full abstract

We can identify two aspects of business organizations: organizations as "social functional device" and organization as "interaction space". The first aspect represents the organizational structure designed to ensure that members of the organization as a whole work efficiently for realizing the given objectives of the business organization. The second aspect means the space where the members of the organization as individuals interact with each other in the organization. In this paper, the dual structure composed of these two aspects is shown while using the concept "organizational behavior rule" as the criteria of behavior and the relationship between the whole and the elements is explored. The difference between the above mentioned two aspects of an organization is based on the difference between the types of information in the two aspects. Such discussion contributes to development of systems theory on complex systems found in neo-industrial age.

View full abstract

Not few researchers begin to assert importance of supporting the NPO sector for these years in Japan. But it seems that the argument about the supported is insufficient. This paper examines why transparency and accountability are called for, of what information disclosure is asked, and how they are evaluated, in case a NPO tries to obtain funds, bearing a concept of "alternative flows of money" in mind. There exists "alternative flows of money", which are flows of money that are of the excluded from mainstream's flows and that accord to principles other than economical efficiency. However, in "alternative flows of money", the principle of exchange has played the important role. So transparency and accountability, which are necessary in exchanging, are called for. For the side that pays funds, it is important to evaluate the return on payment/investment, when he decides to pay or not. Suggestion of what is evaluated and how is evaluation performed will be obtained from the U.S. example. Form 990 is important as a precondition, but is not enough. Establishing know-how to make activity results into numerical value and qualitative standards, for example, how governance system is built, will be needed.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to make the existence meaning of the business form NPO that hasn't been explained fully so far clear as a subject of the social innovation. Theory about NPO until now deals with only the side that the non-efficiency of the system such as the failure of the market and governmental failure is complemented. But as for the business form NPO that society is reformed, it has hardly explained. In this paper, entrepreneur function of Schumpeter used critically, and entrepreneur function that have solve social problem to use for market mechanism is used as an analysis outline. This entrepreneur function is used, and the socio economics that changes social value into the economical value is proposed. Therefore, entering to the market is necessary for NPO. Therefore, NPO must get in the market to make use of this entrepreneur function. In other words, the organization, which can make use of a social entrepreneur function, is a business form NPO, and this is existence meaning in business form NPO.

View full abstract