Management of Social Enterprises – (M.Sc.)

The programme is Masters degree in Management Sciences with specialisation in Management of Social Enterprises.

The programme gives management science students the opportunity to acquire skills which are common to all the options of the Masters in Management Sciences, whilst at the same time fostering the development of skills useful in social enterprises and, more broadly, teaching them to consider the social, ethical and environmental aspects at the very heart of economic activity.

"Management of Social Enterprises" aims to teach students:

• An ability to analyze: analyze and anticipate social stakes, understand the diverse forms of economic organizations, their roles and specificities;
• Operational knowledge: know the environment (economic, political, legal) in which social enterprises operate, learn the managerial practices adapted to social enterprises, master the tools adapted to their specificities;
• A network of contacts: meet the main actors in the Belgian social economy, make contacts with similar experiments in Europe and the rest of the world;
• A stimulating context for launching social entrepreneurship projects.

The “Management of Social Enterprises" option teaches skills that future graduates are encouraged to develop further in a variety of professional environments, whether as managers, entrepreneurs or experts putting their management competencies at the service of existing social enterprises (companies with a social aim, cooperatives, associations, mutual companies, foundations, NGOs) in very diverse fields of activities such as:

• social and healthcare services (hospitals, mutual companies, medical clinics, pre-school services, senior citizens' services, local services, services for disabled people, etc)
• *North-South relations (fair trade, micro finance, development NGOs etc.),
• the green economy (recycling, energy production and distribution, awareness-raising, production and marketing of organic produce)
• combating exclusion from the employment market (social insertion or training through work, business incubators, cooperative activities)
• the development of alternative finance (solidarity and/or ethical finance),
• culture (production, distribution, support for artists), etc.

By contributing to developing specific expertise in the social enterprise sector:

• in institutions which are in contact with social enterprises (example: banking sector, public administration)
• in consultancy companies which develop specific departments (example: Mac Kinsey Social Sector Office) or in consultancy agencies (consultancy companies focused on working with social enterprises)
• on boards of directors of social enterprises
• by creating enterprises which generate social or environmental added value;
• by supporting projects with societal added value within classic enterprises, in the framework of formal or informal steps towards social/corporate responsibility.