Abstract
Large businesses face certain limitations due to their focus on economic goals and cannot be seen as principle players in dealing with poverty issues. This chapter aims to explore how poor people with limited assets and capabilities manage to bring about creative solutions to their problems. Examination of two social businesses established and run by poor people shows that they manage innovatively to activate assets and capabilities to compensate for the lack of resources. The cases reveal the importance of awareness of poverty issues and the commitment of the poor. The study also highlights the need for future research to scale these models, and further stimulate the cooperation between the poor and other players in tackling poverty issues.
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Notes
- 1.
There are about 1.6 million employees working in 260 industrial parks and 15 economic zones in Vietnam. Seventy percent of them come from outside areas, such as rural villages, and are living in small apartments with poor living conditions and an average space of about 2–3 m2 per person. In order to deal with inadequate living conditions and ensure rehabilitation, a seminar on “Problems of labor and living conditions of workers in industrial parks and economic zones” was held in May 2011 by the Ministry of Planning and Investment to evaluate policies related to improving lives of workers and to propose solutions.
- 2.
Low vision does not mean completely blind but refers to one who “has impairment of visual functioning even after treatment and/or standard refractive correction, and has a visual acuity of less than 6/18 to light perception, or a visual field of less than 10° from the point of fixation, but who uses, or is potentially able to use, vision for the planning and/or execution of a task” (World Health Organization 1992) less than 6/18 to light perception, or a visual field of less than 10° from the point of fixation, but who uses, or is potentially able to use, vision for the planning and/or execution of a task” (World Health Organization 1992).
- 3.
The author would like to thank Mr. Sakan Yanagidaira, President of Group Dynamics Institute, Inc., for helpful discussions on the metaphor.
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Acknowledgements
The author gives special thanks to Tien Minh Blind Massage Service and the Association of Interdependent Arising of Persons with Disabilities for giving me valuable chances to conduct my field research, sparing their precious time to answer my interviews, and supplying helpful documents for this research. This research was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (no. 22330109) (Head investigator: Professor Seiichi Ohtaki – Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University). The author would like to thank Professor Seiichi Ohtaki and colleagues in Ohtaki Laboratory for their constructive comments.
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Nguyen, N.C. (2014). The Mystery of Small Social Business Ownership by the Poor: Creative Solutions Based on the Poor’s Potential. In: Grove, A., Berg, G. (eds) Social Business. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45275-8_9
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