Social Entrepreneurship

A case study of the “Be A Change” project

Ngan Lam

Degree Thesis
International Business
2011
Ngan Lam
DEGREE THESIS
Arcada

Degree Programme: International Business

Identification number: 3143

Author: Ngan Lam
Title: Social Entrepreneurship: A case study of the ”Be A
Change” project
Supervisor (Arcada): Eija Källström

Commissioned by: Sveinn Eldon

Abstract:
This thesis focuses on management of a social entrepreneurship project called “Be A
Change”. When the whole world is facing economics crisis, as well as social and envi-
ronmental challenges; an innovative way of doing business is necessary to solve these
problems. “Be A Change” is a project that encourages social entrepreneurship and youth
entrepreneurs in Finland, making them more supportive and productive.

The author’s purpose is to improve the implementation of the project ”Be A Change” by
studying principal project management steps that ensure the delivery . Theories of social
entrepreneurship and project management were applied. Empirical research was conduct-
ed by case study analysis. In-depth interviews and participating observations were carried
out.

The results demonstrated that the initiating and closing phases of the project had been ne-
glected. It led to a gap in information flow within a project and between projects. That
brought about a fluctuating structure of the team. As the solution, the author formed a
framework including key steps to ensure the project outcomes. Supplementary planning
activities for the project management process were suggested.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, Sustainable

Development, Project Management, Project Life Cycle, Be
A Change
Number of pages: 60
Language: English
Date of acceptance:
CONTENTS

FOREWORD: ............................................................................................................... 8

1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 9

1.1 Motivation and choice of research topic ........................................................................ 9

1.2 Aim of research ........................................................................................................... 10
1.3 Problem and hypotheses ............................................................................................. 10
1.4 Limitation and expectation ........................................................................................... 10
1.5 Description of methods ................................................................................................ 11
1.6 Research structure ...................................................................................................... 11

2 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP......................................................................... 12

2.1 Theories of entrepreneurs ........................................................................................... 12

2.1.1 Origin of “Entrepreneurs” ..................................................................................... 12
2.1.2 Current theories of “Entrepreneurship” ................................................................ 14
2.2 Defining “Social Entrepreneurship” ............................................................................. 15
2.2.1 What is “social entrepreneurship”? ...................................................................... 15
2.2.2 Differences between business and social entrepreneurship ............................... 16
2.2.3 Social entrepreneurial profile ............................................................................... 17
2.2.4 Sustainability – the principal element of social entrepreneurship ....................... 18

3 BACKGROUND OF “BE A CHANGE” ............................................................... 20

3.1 What is the event about? ............................................................................................. 20

3.2 Missions ....................................................................................................................... 20
3.3 Outcomes from previous competitions ........................................................................ 20

4 PROJECT MANAGEMENT ................................................................................. 22

4.1 General Concepts ........................................................................................................ 22

4.1.1 What is project? ................................................................................................... 22
4.1.2 Project Management Explored ............................................................................ 23
4.2 Project Life Cycle ......................................................................................................... 25
4.2.1 Project Initiation ................................................................................................... 26
4.2.2 Project planning and development ...................................................................... 28
4.2.3 Project Execution and Control ............................................................................. 29
4.2.4 Project Closing .................................................................................................... 30

5 METHODOLODY ................................................................................................ 32

5.1 Research Approach and Strategies ............................................................................ 32

5.2 Data Collection Methods ............................................................................................. 32
 5.2.1 Case study ........................................................................................................... 33
5.2.2 Participant observation ........................................................................................ 34
5.2.3 In-depth interview ................................................................................................ 34
5.3 Liability and Validity ..................................................................................................... 34
5.3.1 Liability ................................................................................................................. 34
5.3.2 Validity ................................................................................................................. 35

6 “BE A CHANGE” PROJECT .............................................................................. 36

6.1 Case study ................................................................................................................... 36

6.1.1 “Be A Change” development’s history ................................................................. 36
6.1.2 Project scale, duration and other objectives........................................................ 37
6.1.3 Applying to Project Life Cycle .............................................................................. 40
6.2 Observation: What has changed in events.................................................................. 48
6.3 In-depth Interview ........................................................................................................ 49
6.3.1 Respondent selection .......................................................................................... 49
6.3.2 Interview’s results ................................................................................................ 50

7 DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS...................................................... 52

7.1 Points need to be improved ......................................................................................... 52

7.1.1 Closure planning and execution .......................................................................... 52
7.1.2 External Relations and Fundraising .................................................................... 52
7.2 Challenges a team might face ..................................................................................... 53
7.2.1 Project organization ............................................................................................. 53
7.2.2 Gap of information ............................................................................................... 53
7.3 Steps to ensure project management ......................................................................... 53

8 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION FOR FUTHER RESEARCH ..................... 57

References ................................................................................................................ 58

APPENDIX ................................................................................................................. 61
Figurer / Figures

Figure 1: Components of Sustainable Development (Wikipedia, 2010 ) ....................... 18

Figure 2: The interactive impact of Sustainability (Hans Seidemann, 2010) ................. 19
Figure 3: The Project Management's stage (based on Gardiner, 2005) .......................... 24
Figure 4: Project Life Cycle phases and actions (see Gardiner, 2005:28) ..................... 26
Figure 5: Project Initiation Steps (based on Gardiner, 2005) ......................................... 26
Figure 6: Project Planning and Development process (based on Gardiner, 2005,
MPMM, 2011) ................................................................................................................ 29
Figure 7: Project Execution and control process (MPMM, 2011) ................................. 30
Figure 8: "Be A Change" logo ........................................................................................ 37
Figure 9: Suggestion of team structure for “Be A Change” (“Be A Change” organization
guideline, Lundahl, 2008) ............................................................................................... 41
Figure 10: "Be A Change’s stakeholders from the project scoping in 2009 (Be A
Change’s internal materials) ........................................................................................... 42
Figure 11: Delegates’ needs from the project scoping in 2009(Be A Change’s internal
materials) ........................................................................................................................ 42
Figure 12: AIESEC's needs from the project scoping in 2009(Be A Change’s internal
materials) ........................................................................................................................ 43
Figure 13: "Be A Change" 2009 first timeline used MS Project (Be A Change’s internal
materials) ........................................................................................................................ 44
Figure 14: "Be A Change" 2010 tasks in Many Moon (Be A Change’s internal material)
........................................................................................................................................ 45
Figure 15: A sample of information flow in "Be A Change" project ............................. 48
Figure 16: Suggestion of transition flow for “Be A Change” project ............................ 56
Tables

Table 1: Example of resources and resources utilizing solutions in "Be A Change" ..... 39
Table 2: Expected outcomes from the project scoping in 2009 ..................................... 43
Table 3: "Be A Change" 2009 master task-list, example of milestone 0(Be A Change’s
internal material)............................................................................................................. 45
Table 4: Principal steps of initiation ............................................................................... 54
Table 5: Contain of Project Closure ............................................................................... 56
GLOSSARY:

AIESEC: an international student organization

Ashoka: the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs
Be A Change (BEACH): a social entrepreneurship business idea contest
CSR: Corporation Social Responsibility
Doodle: a scheduling meeting and appointment online service
Google: online search engine
Manymoon: a project management online service
PLC: Project Life Cycle
PM: Project Manager
Remember The Milk: an online to-do list and task management service
SD: Sustainable Development
SE: Social Entreprenuerhip
SWOT: analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
SYY: Suomen Yhteiskunnallisten Yrittäjien: Social Entrepreneurship Associations in
Finland.
The HUB: Places for meeting, working, learning, innovating and connecting dedicated
to inspiring and supporting enterprising initiatives for a better world
Wikipedia: A free encyclopedia built collaboratively using wiki software
FOREWORD:

I would like to express my gratitude to Ms Eija Källström, my supervisor and Mr Juan

Carlos Guzmán Monet, my mentor for supporting and guiding me to conduct this re-
search.

My sincere appreciation is to Mr Andreas Stenius to give me a chance to extend my

study that I could finish this thesis.

I would like to thank Meri Lundalh, Julia Halkivaha for the great experiences we had
together when doing “Be A Change” project. That inspired me to come up with this re-
search. I also thank to Linh Nguyen, Lizzy Chugunova and Anatasios Kos who help me
to complete the data.

Last but not least, my gratefulness is for my parents who endlessly love and encourage
me.

Helsinki 26 April 2011

Ngan Lam.

8
1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Motivation and choice of research topic

Over the past two decades, the citizen sector has discovered what the business sector learned long
ago: There is nothing as powerful as a new idea in the hands of a first-class entrepreneur.(Ashoka,
2010)

As entrepreneurs are more intent to come up with implementing new solutions to social
issues in business scale, a new industry is created: social entrepreneurship (SE)
(Ashoka, 2010)

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is the combination between the passion of social mission
and the image of business-like discipline. It is about driving social change with business
means (Be A Change, 2010). It will increase in near future, because the public sector,
non-profit organizations and traditional businesses cannot tackle all societal challenges
alone. The case with SE is that the social impact is in the root of the company: the basic
idea is to solve or alleviate a certain issue in the society and make business out of it. A
social entrepreneur identifies a social problem and solves it on a large scale (PBS,
2010). While general entrepreneurs create new business methods or transform whole
industries, social entrepreneurs change objectives are aimed for society. They are look-
ing for opportunities to improve the system, invent approaches that advance sustainabil-
ity and create social value (Ashoka, 2010).

While, social organizations are viewed as inefficient, ineffective and unresponsive; time
is ripe for entrepreneurial approaches to social problems; to build a new model for a
new century (Dees, 2001:1). The phenomenon of social entrepreneurship has already
existed some time even if we did not earlier call them that way. The new name implies
an appearance of new sectors and clarifies the mixing of non-profit and profit elements
to seek for more effective methods of serving social missions. (Dees, 2001:1)

The author of this research has been involved in social entrepreneurship through a sem-
inar and competition of socially related business ideas called “Be A Change”. The mis-
sion of “Be A Change” is to create more and more social entrepreneurs in Finland
through spreading the concept and meaning of SE, motivating innovative business ideas
and supporting undertakers starting a business. As an organizer to that SE event in 2009,
9
the author would like to indirectly impact on the development of SE filed by improving
the outcomes of the event.

1.2 Aim of research

First of all, the author wanted to study how well “Be A Change” events were managed
and implemented in different years? Based on the study, the author is able to improve
the competition, build an informative content program for Be A Change, as well as
make it more efficient event to fulfill its main goal of helping social enterprise start-up
and ideas.

1.3 Problem and hypotheses

The purpose of this study is to answer the question “What steps can be taken to ensure
the efficient management of a “Be A Change” project?” To answer the question, the
author wants to know how the organizing teams worked in planning and executing the
project.

What are the project management aspects that need to be improved? What challenges
might the team face? From the result, “Be A Change” will improve planning and help
increasing the delivery in both content and logistics side. Besides, the organizers are
able to develop their program so it fits with different audiences’ needs.

1.4 Limitation and expectation

“Be A Change” has been delivered for 3 years since 2008; every year there is a totally
new organizing team in which most of the participants are students. Fresh and inexperi-
enced members have many obstacles in order to improve the result based on previous
work but they tend to build up a new system to work on. Thus, this research aims to cre-
ate a framework of fundamental steps that can be used to ensure the managing of the
project. The framework will be in starting and planning a project, as these phases affect
the implementing process of the event. Moreover, a general framework supports the
team when launching the project but also leave them space to work creatively and avoid
any premade mindset.
10
1.5 Description of methods

Based on the book “Doing good – Business and Sustainability challenge” - Economist
and Intelligent Unit, 2008; the article “The meaning of Social Entrepreneurship” - J.
Gregory Dees; Stanford Social Innovation Review paper - Roger L. Martin & Sally Os-
berg “Social Entrepreneurship: The case for definition” and other internet resources, the
author refers to other documents on social impact, sustainability and sustainable busi-
nesses which are also a new operating model of normal for-profit organizations. Internet
provides an abundant resource of updating information. In the SE industry, competitors
are partners, thus all SE organizations would like to publish as much info as possible to
enhance results.

The theory of project management is referred to by the book “Project Management – A

Strategic Planning Approach” – Paul D Gardiner. Advance knowledge of project life
cycle and guideline of initiating and planning projects is studied to support the recom-
mendations and suggestions of this research.

A qualitative research method is used to conduct the research. Observations are used
combined with in-depth interviews. The author has own experiences as the events’ par-
ticipant and organizer, which gives a deeper understanding and view of the whole pro-
ject. Structured interviews with other project managers and team leaders are used for
gathering accurate and detailed information.

1.6 Research structure

The whole thesis has been divided into six chapters in which the first one is introduc-
tion. The second and third chapters will go deeply into social entrepreneurship and “Be
A Change” including origin and current theories of “entrepreneurship”, definition of
“social entrepreneurship” and its properties, information on “Be A Change” event, its
visions and missions and outcomes from previous contests. Chapter 4 discusses theory
of project management, project life cycles, different approaches and important elements
to guarantee the delivery. Chapter 5 is about research methods and data collection. Data
analysis and discussion is the content of chapters 6 and 7. Finally, conclusion is in chap-
ter 8.

11
2 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

2.1 Theories of entrepreneurs

According to Roger L. Martin & Sally Osberg (2007:30) in their Stanford Social Inno-
vation Review paper, “the word entrepreneurship is a mixed blessing”. On the positive
side, it includes a great visual sensation that enables to act on the special opportunity,
and a combination of innovative thinking with a unique brand of determination in order
to bring about something new to the world. However, outcomes of entrepreneurial activ-
ities bring noticeable impacts after a passage of time. That is why it is negatively con-
sidered as an ex-post term. (Martin and Osberg, 2007:30)

2.1.1 Origin of “Entrepreneurs”

The origin of the English word “entrepreneur” comes from the French word “entre-
prendre” which can be translated as “to do something” or “to undertake”. Later on, “en-
trepreneur” had the meaning of someone who “undertakes” a particular project or activi-
ties, not in the meaning of “an undertaker” who just undertakes a project or activity but
an entrepreneur is someone who promotes the economic progress by inventing a new
way of doing business. (see Dees, 2001:1)

Back to history of the word, around 1700 A.D, the term used for contractor of public
works. In the early 16th century, it referred to persons who organized and led military
expedition. The “entrepreneur” became an actor in economics in the late 17th and early
18th centuries. It was first applied to business by the French Economist Richard Cantil-
lon. He viewed the entrepreneur as a risk taker, observing that merchant, farmer,
craftsman and other sole proprietor. Since, there was a risk component added to the def-
inition, an entrepreneur was someone who undertakes the business venture with no
guarantee of profits. (Dees, 2001:1)

During the 19th century, the ability to take calculated risks was added to the definition.
The most credited term of “entrepreneur” was given by Jean Baptiste Say (1803). He
said “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an
area of higher productivity and greater yield.” (Say, 1803 cited in Dees, 2001:1) This

12
means entrepreneurs create value. In Say’s definition, there were required skills of en-
trepreneurs to possess knowledge and judgment; to aware of the costs and prices of
goods and can determine how to compare opportunities. Say described an entrepreneur
in terms of behavior, that they tolerably accurately estimated the importance of a prod-
uct, the amount of demand and the means of production. Then they order material, get
the labor and find consumers. During the operations, entrepreneurs have to surmount
obstacles, overcome anxieties, repair misfortunes and devise strategies. As an entrepre-
neur takes upon himself immediate responsibility and risk, the term “entrepreneur” can
be referred as “adventure” in English word. (Say, 1803)

In mid-century, John Stuart Mill (1848) described the entrepreneur as someone who as-
sumes both risk and management in a business (Mill, 1848). Later, Alfred Marshall
(1936) emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship by combining the resource com-
ponent and management component together. According to Marshall, four primary fac-
tors necessary for production are: land, labor, capital, and organization in which organi-
zation is the key factor to coordinate the other three resources. (Entrepreneurial Process,
2010)

In 20th century, the importance of innovative talent was recognized and included in the
description. Also closely associated to Say’s term, Joseph Schumpeter described entre-
preneurs as the innovators who drive the “creative-destructive” process of capitalism. In
his words, “the function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of
production”. They can do this in many ways “by exploiting an invention or, more gen-
erally, an untried technological possibility for producing an old one in a new way, by
opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorgan-
izing an industry and so on” (Schumpeter, cited in Dees, 2001:2). It means entrepre-
neurs’ role is to find new venture, new product or new business methods. With the abil-
ity to find and profitably introduce new and better doing business methods, services and
processes, entrepreneurs move the economy forward. Creative and innovative destruc-
tion is key responses for the dynamism of industries. Israel Kirzner, on the other hand,
saw an entrepreneur as someone recognizes profit opportunities as arbitrage, acts upon
them and moves the economy to a stable equilibrium. Overall, the requirement for an
entrepreneur is to make decision. (cited in Russel, 2011)

13
2.1.2 Current theories of “Entrepreneurship”

Contemporarily, there is a wide range of theories of entrepreneurships. Individuals who

create a company are called entrepreneurs; no matter they are successful or unsuccess-
ful. The most common definition is that an entrepreneur is a person who implements
and controls any form of business. Some of the responsibilities of an entrepreneur in-
clude planning, organizing, operating, staffing, controlling and assuming the risk of
business ventures. Nevertheless, many of the leading thinkers remain the Say-
Schumpeter’s tradition and offering variations on the theme. Peter Drucker (1995), to
amplify what is special about entrepreneur, focused Say’s definition on opportunity (see
Dees, 2001:2). Entrepreneur does not need to cause change but takes advantage of what
change creates for example in technology, consumer preferences, social norms, etc.
“The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an op-
portunity.” (Drucker, 1995:28) Opportunity comes from changes in the environment.
Entrepreneurs are opportunity-driven who excel at seeing patterns of change as possibil-
ities rather than problems. In responding to change, entrepreneurs create something new
or something different. Thus, innovation is what entrepreneurs do. For Drucker, starting
a business is neither necessary nor sufficient for entrepreneurship. “Not every new small
business is entrepreneurial or represents entrepreneurship” (Drucker, sited in Dees,
2001:2) if there is nothing especially innovative or change-oriented in this. The same
fact is with new not-for-profit organizations. (Dees, 2001:2)

Howard Stevenson, a leading theorist of entrepreneurship at Havard Business School,

conducted from his research what distinguishes entrepreneurial management from more
common form of “administrative” management hence added an element of resourceful-
ness to the opportunity-oriented definition (Howard et al., 1999). Among several dimen-
sions of difference, he suggested defining the heart of entrepreneurial management as
“the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled” (Howard,
1999 cited in Dees, 2001:2). Administrative managers set their goals based on the given
resources under their control while entrepreneurs determine what resources they need to
acquire in order to achieve their goals. The initial resource endowments cannot limit
entrepreneurs’ options. They mobilize the resources of others to achieve their objectives
while administrators allow existing resources and job descriptions to hinder their visions
and actions. (Dees, 2001:2)
14
In more recent time, the term entrepreneurship has been extended to include elements
not related necessarily to business formation activity. The concept of entrepreneurial
mindset, which described entrepreneurial spirit, result in entrepreneurial initiatives in
different forms. They represent groups of personal dispositions lead to the innovative
practice of identifying and creating opportunities then act to manifest those opportuni-
ties in a productive way.

2.2 Defining “Social Entrepreneurship”

2.2.1 What is “social entrepreneurship”?

The conceptualization of entrepreneurial mindset lead to one specific form called social
entrepreneurship.

A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial
principles to organize, create and manage a venture to make social change (Wikipedia, 2010).

Social entrepreneurship (SE) adopts a mission to create and sustain social value. There
are many social issues that social entrepreneurs can recognize and choose to address
such as education, health care, economic development, the environment, the arts or any
other social field. (Ashoka, 2010)

Creating and developing social value is a core different SE from business entrepreneurs
and even from socially responsible business or so-known as CSR – Corporate Social
Responsible. For a social entrepreneur, the social and environmental missions are fun-
damental. While a business typically evaluate performance in profit and return, SE fo-
cuses on making social capital. Financial return, consumption benefits or customer rela-
tion may be parts of the model, but these are means to a social end, not the end in itself.
Social impact is the gauge of value, neither profit nor customer satisfaction. SE looks
for a long-term social return on investment. (Dees, 2001:3, Martin and Osberg, 2007:34)

The term social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship were first used in the 1960s
and 1970s. It came into widespread use in 1980s and 1990s, promoted by Bill Drayton
the founder of Ashoka Innovators for the Public. Although the terms are relative new,
the idea of social entrepreneurship can be found throughout history for instance Flor-
ence Nightingale - founder of the first nursing school and developer of modern nursing
15
practices, Robert Owen – founder of cooperative movement, and Vinoba Bhave –
founder of India’s Land Gift Movement. Contemporarily, the most well-known social
entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus, founder and manager of Grameen Bank. Rippan
Kapur of Child Rights and You and Jyotindra Nath of Youth, are such examples of so-
cial entrepreneurs, who are the founders of the respective organizations. (Wikipedia,
2010)

2.2.2 Differences between business and social entrepreneurship

What differentiates social entrepreneurship from others is simply motivation with “en-
trepreneurs spurred on by money and social entrepreneurs driven by altruism.” (Dees,
2001:3) Nevertheless, most entrepreneurs are inspired by pursuing the vision, realizing
their ideas and the financial benefit gain as the consequence of the work is an extra add-
ed value. Thus, the criteria distinction social entrepreneurs and others lie in the value
proposition and relation with resource usage. The theory are based on Say, Schumpeter,
Drucker and Stevenson theories, resources, management, opportunity and innovation
are the fundamental of entrepreneurs. (Dees, 2001:3)

Entrepreneurs’ task is to shift resources (capital, labor, equipment, etc) to more econom-
ically productive uses or they tend to be driven out of business. In the market, value is
created for customers who are willing and able to pay more than the cost of good, ser-
vice producing. The more entrepreneurs can pay for resources, the higher value they can
put the resources to use in the marketplace. The better entrepreneur can convince a suf-
ficient number of customers to pay an adequate price to generate a profit, the stronger
value is created. The interaction between resources and values is if firms fail to create
value, they cannot purchase sufficient resources or rise capital and vice versa. Then,
firms with the most economic value have the cash to attract the resources needed to
grow. (Dee, 2001:2)

Markets do not have the same impact for social entrepreneurs. Reasonable, markets are
unable to solve social values, to benefit for people who cannot afford to pay. They are
essential elements in social entrepreneurship. The markets’ discipline in social entrepre-
neurship is depends on the social enterprise’s mission. It relates to who is paying or
providing resources, what their motivations are and how well they can assess the social

16
value created by venture. It is difficult to measure how much value is created by SE ac-
tivities for example reducing pollution in a given steam, or providing learning environ-
ment for youth. Even when the improvements are measured, and attributed to a given
intervention, social enterprises cannot capture the value in an economic form to pay for
the resources they use. (Dee, 2001:3)

2.2.3 Social entrepreneurial profile

Social entrepreneurs certainly have all the characteristics of normal entrepreneurs who
are attracted by opportunity to create something news. Therefore, innovative talent has
become the hallmark of the entrepreneur. According to Drucker, the most important dis-
tinguishing characteristic of the entrepreneur is his or her ability to innovate. (Dees,
2001:5)

To Roger L. Martin & Sally Osberg (2007:33) inspiration, creativity, direct action,
courage, and fortitude are fundamental characteristics to the process of innovation. The
entrepreneur is inspired to alter the unpleasant equilibrium because they are frustrated
users or emphasize with them. Sometimes, they have burning desire to demolish status
quo. To face the issue, entrepreneur does not optimize the current system with some mi-
nor developments but to find a totally new way of approaching the problem. Inspired by
opportunity and possessing a creative solution, entrepreneurs take direct action by pro-
ducing new product, service and the venture to advance it. Entrepreneurs demonstrate
courage by taking big risk and doing things that other think unwise or even undoable.
With their fortitude, entrepreneurs drive their solution go through market adoption and
make their dream true. (Martin and Osberg, 2007:33)

To manifest from the theory of entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs are the one who play
the role of change agents in the social sector. They are reformers and revolutionaries
with a social mission. Their visions are bold and their mission is reducing needs rather
than just meeting them. Their creative solutions are systemic changes and sustainable
improvements. The activities may be local but have the potential to stimulate global im-
provements. (Dees, 2001:5)

17
2.2.4 Sustainability – the principal element of social entrepreneurship

From the Report of the World Commission on the Environment and Development, the
Brundtland Commission:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromis-
ing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (United Nation, 1987)

To concentrate on the environment, inappropriate development, which destroyed or ex-

hausted essential nature and its resource, is put into concern (United Nations, 1987).
Environmental aspect has increasingly embraced both economic and social dimensions.
As resource is one of the fundamental of entrepreneurship and also other businesses, we
are facing with the running-out of natural resources which is directly impacted by envi-
ronmental problem and obstacle with other intangible resources from society.

Sustainable development includes three different parts: social development, economic

development and environmental development. (Wikipedia, 2010)

Figure 1: Components of Sustainable Development (Wikipedia, 2010 )

These three elements have strong interactive impact on each other. Sustainability inter-
faces with economics through the social and ecological consequences of economic ac-
tivity. The consequences of nature being are treated as an economic externality. On an-
other hand, more ethical economics takes greater account of the social and environmen-
tal consequences of market behavior. If the ecological system changes, it will bring
along the social problem; cause to lack of social resources, which will lead the econom-
18
ic go down. Then the economic crisis creates more social issues. Hence, positive inter-
action of each part maintains the system existence.

Figure 2: The interactive impact of Sustainability (Hans Seidemann, 2010)

As the mission of social entrepreneurship is to create social value and make a good im-
pact on a large scale in long-term, the solution for sustainable issues is crucial in order
to converse into a good circle of development.

19
3 BACKGROUND OF “BE A CHANGE”

3.1 What is the event about?

“Be A Change” is a social entrepreneurship idea competition and conference held an-
nually in Helsinki, Finland and later in Tampere. It was first established as one of the
main projects of AIESEC Finland in 2008, with the purpose to produce new social busi-
nesses through a competition on innovation. Its vision is to create a big change in one
social challenge by encouraging and motivating social entrepreneurship. There are two
parallel sectors in the event: the competition and the conference.

The competition is for everyone with or without an initial idea in mind when coming to
the event. During the seminar, participants have a chance to come up with their ideas, or
to develop their old ones. There is flexible time throughout the days for them to gather
people who shares similar interest in one issue, to discuss and improve their idea as well
as to draft plans on how to do it, based on the information they have received during
sessions. The winners of the competition have supports from Be A Change and partners
when they implement their ideas and put them into practice.

3.2 Missions

Be A Change’s mission is “to be a platform for aspiring social entrepreneurs to connect,

innovate and grow in order to drive social change in the world”. (Be A Change, 2010)
 Connect: By networking, discussing challenges and exchange ideas
 Innovate: By workshop, speaker sessions, and competition preparation
 Grow: By competing, receiving and providing feedback and networking

3.3 Outcomes from previous competitions

In the first “Be A Change” 2008, there were about 35 participants which came up with
10 business ideas to the competitions but only 3 of them fulfilled the criteria and be-
came the winners of: the best idea, the best potential impact and the best community
initiative.
20
In 2009, the amounts of competitive ideas were less but the quality of ideas was higher
since all six of them were considered as social entrepreneurial ideas. Two winners of the
events, Arecagoodplates as the first one and Tori as the second one, have been brought
into reality.

Arecagoodplates won the competition due to social and environmental aspects. The
business idea is to import Indian plates made from leaves of Areca trees to Finland. The
manufacturing is only collecting Areca leaves from the ground. Leaves look like huge
plates, and they only need to be washed and heated into shapes, without any chemicals
needed in the process. The Areca plates can replace paper plates, providing an environ-
ment friendly option. Furthermore, the team wanted to support “The Children’s Trust”
foundation of the village of Hampi, India and make them their business partners. After
the competition, Arecagoodplates team founded their company Kaver Goods Product
Oy to realize their idea. “Tori” idea was to sell organic products and food from local
farmers to end consumers by providing to-door-delivery services. Now they are running
their company Makumaku operating an online store.

The team “Icebreakers” won Be A Change 2010 with the idea to educate and support
young Finns, help them develop strong personal skills and gain confidence by first or-
ganizing soft-skill-courses for high school students then expanding to other sectors.
Their idea is realized by establishing the company Jäänmurtaja Oy.

Lately, in Tampere, Be A Change 2011 winner was a team with the idea of a social café
called Vis-à-vis. Its aim is to gather youth especially students, exchange students in
Tampere area, and to provide an intercultural, professional space to improve their social
life. The place also acts as a bridge that connects companies and their potential talented
employees.

Criteria used to evaluate ideas were: scalability, revolutionary and financial sustainabil-
ity. They mean that ideas are innovative, unique and able to make remarkable impact in
a big scale regardless different market segments or geographical areas.

21
4 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

4.1 General Concepts

4.1.1 What is project?

According to Project Management Institute, a project is “a temporary endeavor under-

taken to create a unique product or service” (PMI 2000:6, cited in Gardiner, 2005:2).
Based on British Standard Institution, project is a set of coordinated activities which
have a beginning and ending time, undertaken to meet specific objectives and bring add
valued to the organization or individual. A project is defined within a schedule, cost and
performance size. Different from other organizational work, projects have three particu-
lar characteristics that they are temporary, unique and require elaboration (Gardiner,
2005:2). In cost-conscious case, projects imply of capitalizing scared resource. The
“management by project” method is used to shortening product development times, de-
creasing costs and increasing effect, reliability and profit margins (Meredith and Man-
tel, 1995:9, cited in Gardiner 2005:4)

As a transitory endeavor, a project has its season and lives a limited period. It does not
mean of a short-term duration. A project’s end may be indefinitely depending on its
scale. The duration of project is defined by the starting and finishing point. Varied be
the size and complexity, it can be from a few days to a few years. The project is finished
either when it is delivered, goals have been achieved or it is terminated due to inability
to meet its objectives. (Gardiner, 2005:2)

The next characteristics of projects are their uniqueness. Projects are all different,
whether how the processing is, what their sizes are, where they are located, how designs
and other features are included. Each project is constrained by a finite budget, timeline,
composed by interrelated activities and has clearly defined objectives. (Gardiner,
2005:3)

A project requires progressive elaboration in which the work is gradually defined. The
plan is being continuously and constantly modified and improved. Tasks are more no-
22
ticeable and higher detail when the project goes to a deeper phase as available infor-
mation is more accurate. According to the “Project Management Body of Knowledge”,
progressive elaboration is also considered as a step which is fundamentally important
for a project manager to plan the process, sketch the preliminary plan and refine it
(PMBOK, 3rd and 4th edition, cited in Gardiner, 2005:3).

In addition to three primary characteristics, projects tend to carry risk and uncertain.
Project’s structure is an organizational complex, which requires the interaction of peo-
ple, departments and organizations. Hence, it attaches special importance for teamwork,
effective leadership skills. Meanwhile, project also asks for its participants’ ability to
complete single point responsibility provided by the manager. Be managed against time,
budget and human force, a project suffers conflict due to competition for resources with
other projects or non-project works.

4.1.2 Project Management Explored

At the most common knowledge, project management (PM) is defined as the discipline
of managing projects and the people who participate in it successfully. The discipline
of managing embraces the planning, organizing, monitoring, controlling processes and
the motivation of all those involving in. Successfulness is graded by the completion of
specific goals, which means the project’s objective is achieved within schedule, cost-
wisely, high quality and performance. To do that, project manager needs the knowledge
to answers certain questions of what is taken into account, who is involved in, how dif-
ferent parts, functions are related, what each team member’s role is, what skills are
needed, et cetera. Managing tasks contain four significant stages those are planning, or-
ganizing, controlling, leading and motivating. (Gardiner, 2005:5-7)

23
 Leadership and motivation

Feasibility Planning Organizing Controlling

Figure 3: The Project Management's stage (based on Gardiner, 2005)

Planning, frequently put down into document, explains how a project is going to pro-
ceed. Participants needs the information when to carry out the project, its goal and steps
to achieve the goals and when to accomplish those steps. Planning documents include
activity plan, resource plan and budget plan. Depend on project’s size, planning varies
from simple containing a few documents or more complex required various level of de-
tail. At the start, a project is approved to go ahead once it satisfies feasibility criteria.
The three criteria are technical criterion, business criterion and functional criterion.
(Gardiner, 2005:5)

Easy said but complicated in action, organizing is about arranging resource to meet the
needs and obtain on-time project delivery. State of human resource, organizing respon-
sibility is structuring the team, dividing the work relied on specialization, orientating
them towards the goals. The right structure has to ensure everyone commit to the pro-
ject, share common objectives, understand the situation and be able to communicate ef-
fectively (Gardiner, 2005:6). On another hand, organizing optimizes the use of material
and support resources to perform managerial function. Consequence, it satisfies of pro-
ject’s communication and integration. Interaction in projects cut across department
boundaries, bring impacts to decision making. Organizing is done by identifying tools,
methods and templates to use in project, frequently reporting the relationship, type and
time of meetings. (Gardiner, 2005:6)

Controlling guarantee attempts at organizing are realized. It makes sure that projects are
executed as specific as planning, that is documents are not just written down and forgot-
ten. Project managing is the progress of transforming the resources (input) into results
24
(output) which are tangible deliverables through planning and organizing. In this stage,
the continuation of the project is considered by re-examine three feasible criteria wheth-
er consequences of activities go on the right direction, still fit in the budget, and have
the same scope. As the result, project directors can decide to keep going on, stop or de-
lay project. (Gardiner, 2005:6)

Leading and motivation are critical to succeed the project. The manager has to get thing
done at best in their authority while keep the staffs motivated to do the right thing and
willed with their roles. As project work is apart from their normal department roles,
leadership involves shaping goals and creating ownerships. Besides building clear role
and structure, enclosing people from cross departments together takes important place to
establishing good communications, makes them strive for the same ambition. Under-
standing of human factors in a project is crucial. Skills needed for project leadership are
negotiation, teambuilding, political influences, utilizing of human knowledge, etc. They
are more likely activities of entrepreneurs. (Gardiner, 2005:7)

4.2 Project Life Cycle

Project life cycle (PLC) is a set of phases that project move through. It defines the dura-
tion of the project from the starting to the ending point. Using PLC approach to manage
a project helps to avoid overlooking difficult issues, prevent wasting resources especial-
ly time and money, to ensure effective usage of capacity. (Gardiner, 2005:27)
The PLC comprises four phases (figure 4)

25
 •Establish feasibility study
•Identify project's objective and scope
Initiation and •Define needs
definition

•Generate activities and tasks

•Divide roles and responsibilities
Planning and •Develop different plans and schedule
development •Confirm finances & budget

•Carry out the project works

•Track and manage project
Execution •Quality assurance
and control •Verify and modify performances

•Perform post-project preview

•Close all records
Closure •Delivery final reports and transfer all responsibilities.

Figure 4: Project Life Cycle phases and actions (see Gardiner, 2005:28)

4.2.1 Project Initiation

Initiation and planning is a start of a project first by describing the “sum of products and
services to be provided by the project” (PMI, 2000). In this phase, a feasibility study is
conducted and project assessment is investigated. The first phase of Project Life Cycle
essentially involves five steps:

New Project Proposal Business Case Project Scoping

Development

Feasibility Study Project Appraisal Team building

Figure 5: Project Initiation Steps (based on Gardiner, 2005)

26
Feasibility studies are typically conducted at the beginning of project initiation to sup-
port the business case proposal. A feasibility study realistically evaluates both positive
and negative aspects of project’s opportunity. Feasibility study tasks include determin-
ing the problem, evaluating marketing potential and implementation feasibility, as-
sessing internal resources, budget needed and cost effectiveness, analyzing technology
required. The end result of feasibility study is the first justification determining if the
project is possible, practical and viable hence enables the decision making to-go or not-
to-go to the next step. Its report also provides a structure method for further analyzes
and planning such as problem focusing, objective identifying, alternatives evaluating,
solution selection and resources requiring, etc. (Gardiner, 2005:82)

Like a business plan used to before implementing a business idea, a business case is de-
veloped to secure the project finance, ensure the funding reflect the business strategy
and return benefits to shareholders and stakeholders. Business case analyzes the busi-
ness need and project contribution to strategy, key stakeholders, their interests in the
project and their desired outcomes. It investigates objective and scopes, conditions
whether project fits to the constraint and existing environment. To manage risk, busi-
ness case investigates various options to bring the highest ratio of benefit to cost by do-
ing each option’s SWOT analysis, concerning with organization capability and certain
business change, the procurement process and financial ability. Overall, business case is
a convincing tool to persuade participants of a project. It should be maintained and re-
viewed at every stage. (Gardiner, 2005:83-85)

As the result of feasibility and business case development, in project appraisal, the or-
ganization will decide if the project concept will turn into reality. In this step, the feasi-
ble question is once again asked that will the project gain sufficient benefits to cover the
cost of implementing and operating. A project summary gathers briefly information
about the project containing the purpose, value and cost of the project, related technical
analysis, process management and risk evaluation. (Gardiner, 2005:86)

The project scoping and teambuilding are intercrossing steps. First task after the project
approved, the project manager has to appoint the project team members. Technical ex-
pertise and favorable personalities personnel is promised and needed to build an effec-
27
tive team (Gardiner, 2005:210). Once the team appointed, the manager must organize
the team by allocating specific people in specific role and build the team structure.
There are three team structures used in organization: functional structure, product (pro-
jectised) structure and matrix structure. In project management, functional structure is
common used, which groups members by specific functions of operating activities. It
gives a vertical communication channel within the functions and provides a large con-
centration on specialist that makes competitive advantages (Gardiner, 2005:128). Team
building activities start in the end of initial phase when the team is gathered and contin-
ue principally in the planning phase and throughout the project.

Project scoping is the first exercise for the team and also a chance to create team envi-
ronment. Scoping continue the process of defining a project by identifying its missions
and purposes (Gardiner, 2005:198). Scoping involves identifying project’s requirement,
by identifying its clients and sponsors’ needs, determining all the stakeholders and their
expectations, addressing critical success factors (CSFs) and what need to be done to
achieve them (Gardiner 2005:199-201). A part of scoping process is validated from fea-
sibility study report and business case. In other words, scoping a project creates project
objectives. Project objectives are so-known as project milestones which likes check-
points on the process. For each milestone and the whole project, a scope is defined by
specific information about what the work includes or not included with expected result
outcomes. Methods to complete the work are also indicated.

4.2.2 Project planning and development

This phase form the basis of project control plans from creating all the required, mobi-
lizing and structuring all the resources needed or available, to establishing an infrastruc-
ture supporting resources and maintaining the network. It is critical phase to overall
success of the project.

Follow the initial stage, a project is planned in a high level of detail with various tasks
and duration for each to complete project works. The planning process consists of gen-
eral project plan which firstly determines how to plan, developing of project scope, cre-
ating the work break-down structure, listing activities needed then establishing re-

28
sources requirement, time and cost for activities to develop budget and schedule. Final-
ly, a risk planning is estimated and the team starts to implement the project. (Gardiner,
2005:27)

The work result of planning phase is creation a suite of planning documents that guides
the team to project delivery. Different plan documents contains scope management plan,
work plan and timeline, resource and budgetary plans, procurement plans and contract
strategy, risk management plans, quality management plans, document management
plans, project control plans including project closure and handover, human resource
management plans including recruiting, teambuilding, training and leadership plans.

Project Plan Scope HR Work schedule

Development Management & timeline

Risk Quality Financial Plan Resource plan

Management Management

Communicatio Procurement Contract Project

n Plan Plan Strategy Control

Figure 6: isProject
Planning Planningphase
an important and Development
of project lifeprocess (based can
cycle which on Gardiner,
make up 2005, MPMM,
half way the
2011)
success of a project. Well-planed documents help the project team to broaden their un-
derstanding of scope, to determine priorities and to minimize last minute scope changes.

4.2.3 Project Execution and Control

In this phase, all the plans are put into action, a great amount of expenditure are spent
and as a project progressed, sponsor expects to see the project results (product or ser-
vice) arriving on time within or exceed expectations. (Gardiner, 2005:27)

With a suite detailed of project plan, the team enters to the implementing phase of the
project which means all the activities planned turn to reality, not just put down into doc-
uments and forgotten. Monitoring and controlling project is process of observation pro-
ject execution and ensuring project performances. While monitoring collects sufficient
29
data which makes sure the team carries out the plan correctly, controlling emphasizes on
the delivery of project that meet everything it is supposed to be.

The “Method123 Project Management Methodology” software (MPMM) describes the

process of implementing and controlling project as a following diagram:

Figure 7: Project Execution and control process (MPMM, 2011)

Monitoring elements concentrate on selecting control measurement factors, observing
activities, collecting the control data then comparing them with planning information.
Consequences, project deliverables will be physically built and presented to stakehold-
ers for acceptances. (Gardiner, 2005:284ff)

As stated in chapter 4 (4.1.2), in control phase, feasibility study and business case de-
velopment are re-conducted to evaluate possibility of continuing a project.

4.2.4 Project Closing

This is a formal part of PM, which is planned at the start of the project. A successful
project is the one which is closed when achieving goals within the specific planned
timeline. Closure part is recognized by closing the project budget.
30
An efficient project closure generates experiences, skills and intellectual knowledge
which can be transferred to other projects or functional staffs in an organization thus
contribute to strategic development of a firm. To all the stakeholders, a good closure
makes it easy to retrieve information throughout the project. Personally, achievement of
a project work and related preference items complete team members feeling of accom-
plishment, bring about personal satisfaction and certainly team rewards or recognition.
Unfortunately, this is a popularly overlooked phase in project management. (Gardiner,
2005:295)

Closing plan finalizes all activities and tasks based on work break down structure to
close project phase. Team members self-reflect on the project and aware of what is ex-
pected and result at the end. Hereby, manager can reward and recognize team members,
evaluate and recommend their development opportunity. Final coordinating with clients
is conducted to concord their vision with the final product and service. Next is closing
of all technical and financial elements of the project. Last but not least, all the infor-
mation needs to be recorded to organization database. (Gardiner, 2005:296)

31
5 METHODOLODY

5.1 Research Approach and Strategies

As the author aimed to create a planning model for a particular project, this research is
conducted a combination of case study and inductive approach. Induction’s purpose is
to generate theory about a specific subject and to get a close understanding of the re-
search context (Saunders, Lewis and Thronhill, 2009:127). Case study investigation en-
ables to answer descriptive or explanatory questions of “what”, “how” and “why” (Yin,
2006:112).

This research is combined between explanatory and exploratory research. Explanatory

study creates and emphasizes the casual relationship between variables (Saunder, Lew-
wis and Thronhill, 2009:140), in which case study is applied. Exploratory research is
conducted for unidentified issues hence it helps researcher determine the subjects.

To obtain valuable insight information, qualitative data is required. To support the case
study, participant observation and in-depth interview are used to collect data. Participant
observation’s purpose is to gain familiarity with the group and to learn research sub-
jects’ perspectives. While observing and participating, researcher is able to understand
the complexity of human experience, an endeavor for developing project (FHI: 14). In-
depth interview carries out individual interview with a small group of respondents to
examine issues in details. This technique explores respondents’ perspectives on a par-
ticular idea, program or situation (Boyce and Neale, 2006:3). More explanation on how
to apply these research methods to this topic will be described in the next chapter “Data
collection Methods”.

5.2 Data Collection Methods

In some research method theories, case study is considered as a research method, but
another suggestion that it is seen as a research strategy. A particular property of case
study is that it can either include other research methods in data collecting or use them
as a supportive method. In this research, the author used case study both as research
32
strategy and method to analyze project managing process. Case study research generates
wide ranging information of what happened and how they were. Participant observation
is to affirm the result from case study. And in-depth interview is to gather project other
participants’ perspectives and opinions.

5.2.1 Case study

According to Yin, case study method arises from at least two situations; first at stated
before, to express either what happened or how and why something did happen, then, to
infer the relationship to the result or an objective; to get close understand of it. Unlike
most other methods when data collection usually happened before data analysis, case
studies may require to do both of them together (Yin, 2006:113). Data sources for case
studies consists documents, archival records, reports, observation or interviews, etc.
They can include both quantitative and qualitative sources (Yin, 2006:116)

Techniques for analyzing data in case studies firstly are directed to research questions.
Secondly if the researcher’s motive is to take the cases as examples for deducing some
general lessons, the techniques might be directed at these lessons. Lastly, the analysis
can start with what the researcher thinks or would like to discover if the case study is
guided by a discovery motive (Yin, 2006:119).

In this research, the author investigated a single case study on the “Be A Change” pro-
ject. The case study aims to answer the major research question “How was “Be A
Change” organized”. Sources of the study came from planning documents and tracking
tools that organizing teams have used in every events. Since “Be A Change” has been
implemented during three years with four events, there were four organizing teams with
different working methods. The data vary and can be either similar or total different
from time to time. The project life cycle is used as a standard pattern to analyze “Be A
Change” project managing process. As the result of the case study, the author will be
able to fulfill the research’s objective, to come up with the answer for the question
“What steps can be taken to ensure the efficient management of a “Be A Change” pro-
ject?”

33
5.2.2 Participant observation

Participant observation obtains data which will check against what organizations believe
and do (FHI:14). The usage of participant observation method is this research is to fol-
low activities and deliverable results of recent events. In this research, the author partic-
ipated to the organizing team once as an audience of the two last events. That helped
author to identify improvement of the team as well as significant changes they had
made.

5.2.3 In-depth interview

5.2.3.1 Sampling
Interview respondents are selected based on their advanced knowledge with the project.
The invitations were sent to six selected respondents and five out of them replied to
show their interest in the research. Respondents were project directors, project manag-
ers, team leaders or experienced participants. Respondents took part to the project with
different roles and in different times. They have diversity backgrounds and reflections
with the project that will bring an adequate image of the project throughout the times.

5.2.3.2 Questionnaire design

The questionnaire is designed based on the respondent knowledge with the project, in
order to understand if the project has been planned well according to the project life cy-
cle. Respondents who were first created or expanded the project are asked more about
the initial phase and feasibility study while project managers or team-leaders are fo-
cused on planning and monitoring phase.

5.3 Liability and Validity

5.3.1 Liability

Reliability in qualitative research is its quality. A good qualitative study helps to “un-
derstand a situation that would otherwise be enigmatic or confusing” (Eisner, 1991:58).
The reliability of qualitative research also prefers if the research is trust worthy and if
the result found is studied by another author or not. In this research, the author herself

34
has involved to the project, come up with the issues and developed the solution. The re-
spondent was informed about reasons to interview, the research objectives, purposes,
confidentiality and other related issues. Questions were designed clear and easy for re-
spondents to understand and answer with their own experiences. Moreover, questions
were structured sharply based on the literature.

5.3.2 Validity

The researcher has taken into account the pros-and-cons, the reliability of each research
method and chosen the best combination methods for the most accurate data. The litera-
ture review was carefully referred for sound theory knowledge. Respondents were not
chosen randomly but reasonable and relevant to the objective and they can ensure a
wide range of data. Furthermore, data analysis, discussions and recommendations were
created based on the theory framework to solve the research problem.

35
6 “BE A CHANGE” PROJECT

6.1 Case study

6.1.1 “Be A Change” development’s history

The “Be A Change” project had started with an AIESEC alumnus Tomi Astikainen who
had an idea on holding a competition which would encourage entrepreneurial people to
create innovative business ideas that could help solving social or global issues. The idea
soon attracted many students who were in the organization.

In 2008, the project “Be A Change” was approved by the board of AIESEC in Finland
that it would be launched under the name of AIESEC and authorized to use AIESEC
brand name in its marketing and promoting activities. The first “Be A Change” was
hold as two-day seminar and competition in Tikkurila, Vantaa, Finland in the end of Oc-
tober 2008.

After the event, the Grand Jury of the competition gathered up and established the first
“Social Entrepreneurship Association” in Finland, as Finnish name SYY - Suomen
Yhteiskunnallisten Yrittäjien yhdistys ry. SYY is a non-governmental organization and
later continuously support and mentor for “Be A Change” and other SE ideas.

In 2009, the project moved one step further when it established more partnership with
other entrepreneur groups in the capital area and created attractive awards to winners. It
was also the time when “Be A Change” had it official logo then the trademark in the
early of 2010. With the support of AES – Aalto Enterprise Society, the event was orga-
nized in “Design Factory” of Helsinki University of Technology which is currently Aal-
to University. It was also the first time the project receive their first international trainee
from abroad to join the team. After the project 2009, “Be A Change” was no longer be-
longed to AIESEC in Finland but it was officially granted and owned by AIESEC SHS,
a unit of AIESEC Finland at HANKEN University and Arcada University of Applied
Sciences.

36
 Figure 8: "Be A Change" logo

“Be A Change” first raised it financial sponsor in 2010 that could actually cover the cost
of operating, including grants for international trainees, enabled the competition provid-
ing monetary reward and brought financial benefit to the organization. In the same year,
AIESEC in Tampere examined the project opportunity and got approval to expand the
project to Tampere area. The first “Be A Change” outside the capital area was hold in
Finlandia buildings, Tampere in April 2011.

6.1.2 Project scale, duration and other objectives

6.1.2.1 Scale
Although it was aimed to popularize the competition in Finland, “Be A Change” was
still a small scale project that was known mostly in AIESEC, extra in SYY and the
HUB community. Annually events host approximately 35-50 participants and 10-15 ex-
perts in facilitators and Jury team. There were about 7 to 10 members in the project
team, excluding members from the AIESEC board who acted as project director and
from SYY or HUB as supervisors. Each event has generated from average 5 to 7 new
business ideas in which only haft of them were practical and realizable.

6.1.2.2 Resources
There are six categories of resources necessary for a project: business need and re-
quirement, human resource, physical resources, project constraint, organizational and
environmental factors, and information resources. (Gardiner 2005:6)
37
It is understood that there would a big potential for the project as the development of
sustainable business concepts and the desire to strive for a better world among the
youths. Nevertheless, the business need is very vague and need to be explored since the
conception is too new and stays unclear with majority. Hence, the available of business
need and requirement resource depends on how it is utilize and exploit by the project
team.

In the beginning of the project, other resources were extremely rare while the need of
using was much higher because of the ambitious goals. There was no problem to gather
a certain amount of necessary personnel joining the team. However, to get the expert-
ized and constantly motivated members was an obstacle, as most of members were stu-
dents who had little experiences but were frequently busy by study schedules. The pro-
ject had almost no physical resources except some stationery and less than a thousand
euro fund from AIESEC. The teams have usually had three to five months to deliver the
project and the working duration has pretty depended on when they actually started to
implement it after gathering the team. The team’s organizational culture was much in-
fluenced by AIESEC working culture and procedure. Since the project has little history,
there were not many existed data stored for re-use.

To overcome the difficulties, the project team capitalized all the opportunities to obtain
more resources. By making partnership with relevant companies, associations for in-
kind sponsor, using substitute products which were available for free, the project has
successfully self-supplied for its venue, equipment, and facilities as well as heightened
the sustainability concepts.

Resources type Available values Needed Solutions

Human Students with little More expertized es- Training members

or without practical pecially in some through AIESEC
Resources experiences fields such as build- training events
ing seminar content,
selling, raising spon- Asking for support
sor from other NGOs
Using AIESEC and
personal network

Physical Very little or almost Venue, projector and Using venue provided
nothing other IT equipment, by AES or the HUB
flipcharts, foods and including all the fa-
38
Resources accommodations, etc cilities inside
Using old posters
from Makuuni as flip-
charts
Self-cooked or raising
in-kind sponsors, etc

Informational Web address The first organizing

Historical Resources
team leader also pro-
Resources No official data Transition document ject manager built a
storage general guideline for
Web design and de-
organization
No official project velopment
managing tools Using online services
A platform to ex-
to plan, track, store
etc change data and in-
and share information
formation
such as Google docu-
ment, Manymoon,
Doodle, etc.

Table 1: Example of resources and resources utilizing solutions in "Be A Change"

6.1.2.3 Duration
Duration of a project is defined from its starting day to its ending day. “Be A Change”
project in Helsinki normally set the event date in the middle of November, while the
event in Tampere is at the first haft of April. The starting day of the project is indefinite,
depends on when the organizing team leader is selected or the team is gathered. In 2009,
the team was gathered first time in February and started some initial activities before the
team leader was announced in April. In 2010, the team leader was chosen in the end of
April and started to build her team after that. Thus, it can be said the project usually has
approximately six-month length. However, the real working duration of this project in
fact was only three months from September since it has been an issue to connect mem-
bers during summer. Exceptional case of 2011, there was only less than two months real
working time for the project team in Tampere although they had planned to have it three
months.

6.1.2.4 Other objectives: self-learning for team members

Besides the project’s objective of providing a platform to develop social business, “Be
A Change” was designed to bring added value to AIESEC by providing unique experi-
39
ences for their members through running the project. As AIESEC is an organization for
students to improve their professional skills, to make personal development and guide
them to find a way they would like to go. Therefore, regardless the end outcome, all op-
erating activities and supervising concern to how to support their members self-develop.
This objective one way helps the organizing culture but in another way it impacts to the
process output. These consequences and influences will be discussed more in the after
part.

6.1.3 Applying to Project Life Cycle

6.1.3.1 Initiation: Feasibility, Team Structuring and Scoping

There was no official feasibility document report made before the project started. How-
ever, to get approval from AIESEC, a small feasibility and practicality was presented by
the first project manager, Meri Lundahl. According to Meri, it was obvious an interest-
ing topic that attracted many people and also an international trend. Moreover, it went
fitly with the AIESEC value and AIESEC way. More information will be mentioned
later in the in-depth interview with Meri.

Lately, AIESEC Tampere had made a small effort for feasibility study included in their
application asked to extend the project in their region. Stated in their application, there
has been a strong interest for “Be A Change” in Tampere since every year, there were a
large amount of their members participating to the events and contribute a great result to
the competitions. AIESEC in Tampere has a huge potential to launch the project with
their intensive human resources and financial reverses. Based on the development of the
project, they have a strong reference that makes it easy to plan and execute. The project
would increase visibility of AIESEC among students, raise young people’s awareness
about social issues, enclose the relationship between AIESEC and other organization
and last but not least, to provide AIESEC members and students opportunities to involv-
ing the project.

As mentioned in point 6.1.2.4, the team is gathered by members’ interest in the project
and their willingness to learn and participate. Thus, there was no criterion when estab-
lish the team or allocating them. The teams have been structured mostly by members’

40
wishes and partly by their professional skills in case there was a particular need of it,
usually applied for technology-background members.

Figure 9: Suggestion of team structure for “Be A Change” (“Be A Change” organiza-
tion guideline, Lundahl, 2008)
Actually, the structure in figure 9 is used only as a reference to build a team as different
team may have different needs, size, members’ background and working method. The
team has been structured based more on activities’ requirement at a specific period of
time than on functional tasks. Obstacles raised in this situation were that members did
not have enough skills or knowledge on their functions and lack of inner support be-
tween members. However, it brought about the team bonding and members’ excitement
to live new experiences.

Because of the small project scale, it is not necessary to develop a business case. But
project scoping has been an indispensable task must to complete. Scoping determined
all the stakeholders and their needs, the expected outcomes by individual and society,
the events outcomes and also the basis working methods. The communication rules

41
were agreed and comprehensive tasks of each function were added. In this step, a pro-
ject timeline was created to give a whole image of the process.

Figure 10: "Be A Change’s stakeholders from the project scoping in 2009 (Be A
Change’s internal materials)

Learn about SE

See to procedure of
Participants making a business plan

Get a business idea

Network & Excitement +

Delegates Example of Success Interested in competition

Challenge from business

perspectives

Competitors
Team

Receive advice from

professors and sotiphicated
people

Figure 11: Delegates’ needs from the project scoping in 2009(Be A Change’s internal
materials)

42
 Figure 12: AIESEC's needs from the project scoping in 2009(Be A Change’s internal
materials)

Individual and social outcomes Event outcomes

• Personal Development • Get more people and companies

with same goals to build a strong
• Get employment in future career background and networking of
BEACH in Finland.
• Develop a business plan
• Discuss and exchange information.
• Motivate and encourage social
entrepreneurship • Let participants understand the is-
sues of social entrepreneurship.
• Develop people’s awareness.
• Have a big map of ideas.
• Big change in one social challenge.
• Involve delegate business idea into
• Make change of Finnish legislation
reality
in social entrepreneurship
• Grow BEACH in other area out-
side Helsinki.

Table 2: Expected outcomes from the project scoping in 2009

6.1.3.2 Planning and team building

In the planning phase of the project, some principal planning documents have been giv-
en more attention than others. Frequently there were general planning documents in-
43
cluding or excluding a master task-list; marketing and promoting plan for making part-
nership and advertising events, content plan consisting of event’s agenda, and then lo-
gistics plan particularly for the event dates. Human resources and schedule plans were
contained in these plans.

Figure 13: "Be A Change" 2009 first timeline used MS Project (Be A Change’s internal
materials)

M Team Tasks

Content  M0: Feedback session with last year's Grand Jury - what did
you learn, and what would you do differently?
 M0: Define Grand Jury profile (who we want, how many we
need) and the objectives and tasks of their role
 M0: Define facilitators profile and the objectives and tasks of
their role
 M0: Define objectives and key messages of the agenda clearly
 M0: Session outline template available
Marketing  M0: Publication - publish article on at least one public media to
M promote and advertise.
0  M0: Define which communication channels to use and how to
reach them (universities, AIESEC, partners, etc)
 M0: Define an advertising quote – how to express the event’s
idea in the best way?
 M0: How to spread BEACH’s idea outside Helsinki?
HR  M0: Team building – recruit (who need in each team), remain
(task managing, meeting)
 M0: Atmosphere?
Logistics  M0: Define where to organize the event (Location, Size, and
Transportation): Otaniemi summer cottage, schools, city?)
44
  M0: Which need to be supplied?
ER  M0: Define potential partners and sponsors
VC  M0: Determine how the website and forum look likes
 M0: How to connect and communicate between members
Finance  M0: Grant raising and book keeping
Table 3: "Be A Change" 2009 master task-list, example of milestone 0(Be A Change’s
internal material)
Different planning tools were used to manage the phase. The most common way was
Gantt chart which was easy to share via Google document and could create by popular
office software such as MS Excel or better with Ms Project. Online project managing
services were also utilized for example “Remember the milk” to create a master task list
and milestones in 2009 and “Many Moon” to manage the whole project even document
sharing in 2010.

Figure 14: "Be A Change" 2010 tasks in Many Moon (Be A Change’s internal material)
Especially in 2010, the project team concerned to fundraising plan and guideline focus-
ing on NGO and corporations. In fact, the grant application plan had been considered in
very beginning to apply for governmental foundation grant. However the result was not
45
as expected due to the lateness and lack of transitions every year, although the project
team 2009 had made effort to complete the application. Financial issues had not been
planned thoroughly since there was a gap in communication between the team and the
organization while the organization took care of the finance and usually no fix amount
was pre-determined. The project team only tried to sketch all opportunities to reduce the
cost as they knew the finance was limited.

As an exceptional case in the Tampere team due to a limited time, they did not make
any initial plan but followed the model of previous events like an agenda. The issues
raised in this situation were that every year, the team either did mostly scoping and
planning themselves and omitted some significant parts or did not have enough time to
do so. On another hand, each team had its own strengths and weaknesses in various
fields which should be complemented and improved but most of the documents were
forgot and lost after the project closed the new team started from initial guideline in
2008.

Team building plays an important role in this project to increase the team-spirit, posi-
tively affect to the communication when there was a short time line and the team first
time work together. As a student team, team building activities usually were social
agenda and get-to-know-each-other besides official working and setting objectives. Ac-
cording to the in-depth interviewees, most of them were satisfy with the team spirit they
built and took it as one of a strongest advantage to over-face challenges; but to Julia
Halkivaha, the project manager in 2009, she mentioned lack of team building as one of
the weaknesses during her term and would address it as a to-be-improve point.

6.1.3.3 Execution and controlling

Unlike in other organizations, the work in AIESEC or specifically in “Be A Change” is
volunteering work. Hence, there is no obligatory requirement for team members to ful-
fill their responsibilities. All the work is done and tracked self-consciously. Members
are motivated to complete their tasks by their learning desires, commitments, and their
ambition of achievements. Furthermore, with different background and knowledge,
what one member has done might sometimes be far away from the understanding or ex-
pecting of others. Thus, it was challenging to monitor and control the direction of the
project.

46
It happened to projects in Helsinki that plans were carried for a long time before they
were actually implemented. Summer was a typical time of the most ineffective period
when there was either no or little actions although it is supposed to be a crucial time to
prepare all necessities. Consequences, the majority of schedule and time plans needed to
be redone as time flew.

Besides the task-based documents, there was neither a control system nor monitoring.
The project scopes were rarely reviewed and neither was the feasibility. Fortunately the
teams still remembered their goals and objectives although they tended to focus on nu-
merical numbers like the amount of participants and business ideas. A positive aspect of
the project is that team members were always striving for the end result, passing all
challenges. Regardless it might be an unexpected outcome ahead; it is typical in the “Be
A Change” project is that the team would never give up. And it is an essential reason for
the achievements of the project.

6.1.3.4 Closing
No closure plan was conducted in advance on how to close the project. Normally the
project would close shortly after the event ended. It was misled of closing the project
with closing the event.

In some teams, the project outcome was reviewed by gathering feedback from partici-
pants, Grand Jury and facilitators even though it was more likely to inspect the final de-
livery which means the event. The project was considered officially ended with the final
financial report and a team gathering day with social purposes not to reflect the working
process.

Sometimes team members may be asked to write a small report on what they have done
and thought about project but they did not come and discuss together. Seldom there was
any information to supply to database or as records. By default, the new project team
will need to contact previous team or related people for additional information.

47
6.1.3.5 Information flow within a project

Time

Figure 15: A sample of information flow in "Be A Change" project

6.2 Observation: What has changed in events

In this observation, only particular changes in each event are mentioned in order to em-
phasize the relationship between managing methods and consequence outcomes.

The first event in 2008 was perfectly suitable with the sustainable theme. The venue
was in an unused fabric factory with all the furniture from a recycling center. Although
it was the first event with rough content, the atmosphere was truly inspiring and every
single participant was extremely excited with the new concepts and inspired by numer-
ous interesting ideas.

In 2009, the event provided participants essential knowledge from generating a business
idea to constructing a draft of business plan. Speakers were experts in diversified busi-
ness background to instruct in specific fields. Each participant group had their own fa-
cilitator who supervised their business plan. They also had a chance to ask advice from
other speakers in open time or during workshop. A separate slot was reserved for each
participating group to discuss and get an overview from Grand Jury before their presen-
tations. As the result, the quality of business ideas increased impressively.

In 2010, to satisfy participants’ wish that they could have more time on the group work
in order to improve their ideas, no compulsory discussion with Grand Jury was set. In-

48
stead, the group could reserve their time with Grand Jury if needed. In this year, a fi-
nancial prize was given, that made a big supportive reward and competitive environ-
ment into the competition.

The model and agenda of the event 2011 in Tampere was pretty much similar to 2010,
except that they provided one principle supervisor who was working together with the
participating groups the whole time to mentoring them and to avoid a waiting line with
Grand Jury.

6.3 In-depth Interview

6.3.1 Respondent selection

The in-depth interviews were carried with five individuals who had deeply participated
to the project. The aim of these interviews is to gain a deeper understanding of how the
management approach was applied. The interviews are used to confirm differences from
reality to the theory of the project life cycle, and to figure out reasons behind them.
Thus, questionnaires for each respondent were designed based on their expert
knowledge of specific phase in the “Be A Change” project.

The first respondent was Meri Lundahl, who is currently working as a Project Director
of AIESEC in Finland. Meri was also the one who put the “Be A Change” idea into re-
ality. She took the role as a project manager and organizing team leader in “Be A
Change” 2008.

The next respondent was the president of AIESEC Tampere, Linh Nguyen. Linh partic-
ipated to “Be A Change” in both 2009 and 2010 as a competition participant. Then in
the end of 2010, she did a feasibility study for the project in Tampere and established a
project team within AIESEC Tampere.

The third respondent was Julia Halkivaha, the organizing team leader of “Be A Change”
2009. In 2009, Julia was also a project director of AIESEC SHS, the unit of AIESEC in
Hanken and Arcada.
49
The two last respondents were Lizzy Chugunova and Anastasios Kos from the project
team 2011. They were international trainees from Russia and Greece, come to Finland
for their internship with the project. In the team, they played the role as the team leader
and vice-leader who carried most of the planning and operating activities.

A limitation of this selection is that respondents are anyway still students and in most of
the case, “Be A Change” was their first practical experiences. Thus, their satisfaction
after the project was comparative high, especially when recalling all the challenged and
how they faced with them. Therefore, the result might be positive and not as deep as it
was expected to be. However, the interview results are still trustworthy and valid be-
cause respondents were the one who understood this project the most.

6.3.2 Interview’s results

The interview’s result shows the common elements in managing project as well as its
strengths, weaknesses and key elements with impact on the output.

There is no need for a detailed feasibility study report but the team still has to attend to
the project scope and objectives. Every respondent has seen the potential interest and
space to develop the idea, although very little pre-research was taken into account to
confirm that. According to Meri, she saw the need and interest in the idea, then suggest-
ed to the board and convinced them to start it. As her personality, she preferred to work
emotionally based on her belief of the new concepts, together with the AIESEC culture
which opened to any creativity and innovation fit to their value, thus she did not investi-
gate any detailed feasibility. Yet, she had thought about some practicality and realistic
aspects of the idea as well as the obvious need of it in the community.

Information transferring from previous projects to the next one has been done but there
is still more space to improve. All the project managers were satisfied with the infor-
mation they got at hand when starting the project. As Julia mentioned, the organizing
team before her had not only transferred the knowledge but also continuously supported
and helped her to deal with difficulties and challenges, while Lizzy got supports from

50
the board. However, they also stated that the most difficult in the beginning was that
they did not know what to do and how. To Julia, the most challenge in managing a pro-
ject was the lack of working frame and clear task division.

Creation of a team spirit is a key point to the success of this project. Both Lizzy and Ta-
sios were satisfied with their team spirit and stated it as a primary advantage to solve all
the issues. On another hand, Julia mentioned that while managing the project, she more
concentrated on how to get the task done but not to determine a communication method
within the team first. Julia noted that team spirit was a weakness point that brought
about problems to the team and she would like to pay more attention to it if she did this
job again.

The principle criterion to the success of a project is performance of the event which is
evaluated on the number of participants and the event’s content. All respondents
thought there should be more effective promotion of the project, as the visibility of “Be
A Change” is still blurry and it is recognized only in a small group of students, basically
from AIESEC and the HUB. Every year, the project team applies some changes to the
structure of content and figures a down-side of each structure. According to Linh, Lizzy
and Tasios, the agenda is one point that needs to be improved for a better project.

Project closure is misunderstood and easily ignored. Most of respondents’ default pro-
jects would end when the event closes. Thus, no more activity except the bookkeeping
is operated after delivery.

51
7 DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

7.1 Points need to be improved

Although the project has delivered satisfactory results to stakeholders, it has not yet ful-
filled all the objectives the project team would like to see. The data collected show
many defects in managing the “Be a Change” project. Because the project has a rela-
tively small scale, it is impossible to demand an all-sided improvement. According to
the result, steps that will effectively change the situation are addressed: to pay attention
on the closure phase to ensure information flow across projects and to emphasize on es-
tablishing more partnership that help advertising and financing.

7.1.1 Closure planning and execution

Project closure is an “essential activity in successful project activity” (Gardiner,

2005:295). A key component that a project closure must obtain is project preview. The
preview should cover the project requirements; assess the outcomes; include the project
records; document the issues faced and their solutions. Closure should be planned or at
least included in the working schedule. In this situation, closure will create efficient
support for later event. Project evaluation reports and other documents will assist the
successor to follow the previous work and climb to another level.

7.1.2 External Relations and Fundraising

Capacities are fundamental factors for every activity. In the condition of rarely available
resources, the project requires a great deal of partners and sponsors in order to improve
its operation. Partners are not only funding to the project, but also mentoring and pro-
moting it. Especially it is with media in the need to visualize the project’s brand. Due to
a short history, establishing relationships and raising fund are very challenging. To
serve this purpose, the team should clarify first their focus groups, make a clear plan
and train their members’ skills in connecting and managing partners’ relationship

52
7.2 Challenges a team might face

7.2.1 Project organization

Project organization is about structuring and integrating the internal project environ-
ment. The relationship of organizational structure, the functions and departments im-
pacts all aspect of project management (Gardiner, 2005: 126). In this case, the project
organization is mainly about the team structure and the communication channels within
the team. The team structure usually is not fixed and mixed between functionalized and
time-based. It makes it difficult to clarify responsibilities and to control the process.

7.2.2 Gap of information

The issue raised is that there is little historical data and data are not collected or stored
at the same place, it is time consumed for the new team getting to know about the pro-
ject. As the result, it is challenge to create a communication channel within a team and
to previous team.

7.3 Steps to ensure project management

The recommendations are focused on elements that are usually overlooked in the man-
aging process. It aims to support the project team in effective initiating and planning of
the project.
Table 4 shows steps to be carried out:
Action Appropriate time
Information gathering by browsing the website and contacting As soon as possible
previous teams after team selection
 Previous review: principally outcomes compared by
goals, project duration and current conditions
 Partners and contacts
 Shared experiences
Scoping: When the team is ful-
 Determine resources filled

53
  Re-identify stakeholders: by review current partners,
address needs and define potential ones.
 Set objectives (project and individual goals)
 Time-scale
 Tools to use
Team constructing and team building: As soon as there is a
 Define functions, roles and responsibilities team
 Agree internal communication channel and rules
 Members’ motivations and expectations (for the project
and personal learning)
 Individual communication noticed

Table 4: Principal steps of initiation

Scoping and team-building are significant steps that not only lead to strategies of oper-
ating but also let members feel the team and raise their commitments, which is a key
element to complete volunteering work.

Once the team is organized, it is wise to re-connect with previous partners in the begin-
ning to confirm the relationship and their support for the new event.

During the planning phase, team training is required to fill the gap of members’
knowledge and function they will work on. To avoid overlooking every important issue
that causes re-work, questions about the expectation of delivery should always be clari-
fied during planning and executing. In this situation, the main delivery is the semi-
nar/competition event. Questions that the team has to consider throughout the project
are

 How many participants and business ideas are expected? How can we achieve
that number? Through which channel will we do our marketing and promoting?
 What will happen during the event (atmosphere, interaction, discussion, work-
shop, etc)? How should we develop agenda (based on last events feedback)?
 What will make the upcoming event better than previous? How to do that?
 How should we utilize our network and partners?

54
One must-be-paid-attention-to part is about partners’ relationship management, as spon-
sors and partners are primary resources suppliers of the project. To build more partner-
ships especially with corporations, a good plan should be created, including who the po-
tential partners are, how to approach them and how the relationship looks like: How
they can support us (facilities, their network, sponsoring, financing, etc.)? What will
they benefit from us (visibility, network, positive image, etc.)? To maintain a long-term
cooperation, the team should deliver what they have promised and constantly keep in
touch with them.

Last but not least, all the planning documents should be stored preferably virtually for
ease of access and exchange information within the team and for the next team’s refer-
ences.

The next table shows the suggested content of the project closure:

Actions / Documents Purposes

Feedback results from participants. Feedback include To evaluate outcomes of

evaluation of event’s content and atmosphere, speakers events
and facilitators’ satisfaction, Grand Jury’s satisfaction
For next event’s references
(background, profession) and other logistics (venue,
schedule, food, reception, etc) The result should be
briefly stated and stored in closure report.

Project overview: comparison of objectives and out- To get a deep view results of
comes; influences of the process, obstacles, solutions the project as a process (not
and solutions’ effects. only the event)

Identify mistakes and successes, strategies and best For members to obtain their
practices, improvement points learning points and for next
event’s references
Generating the result of the competition: ideas, win-
ners, presentations, etc.

Coordinating with partners, speakers, facilitators and To evaluate their satisfaction

Grand Jury: getting their feedback + gratefulness. of the project and the delivery

55
 from their perspectives.

Media and press release To enhance the visibility

Individual and team reflection: include personal report To learn from experiences.
and team meeting Reward and recognize mem-
bers.

Data storing: all reports, minutes of meeting, files, and For next event’s references
so on

Bookkeeping and financial report Supply to project directors

and for next event’s refer-
ences

Table 5: Contain of Project Closure

Due to the different time line of the project, closure of the project in Helsinki happens at
the same time with initiation of project in Tampere and vice versa. All information
should be available to transit from project team in Helsinki to Tampere. Doing that way
also reduce the gap between two events.

BEACH 2010
Helsinki

BEACH 2011
Tampere

BEACH 2011
Helsinki

Figure 16: Suggestion of transition flow for “Be A

Change” project

56
8 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION FOR FUTHER RE-
SEARCH

The research purpose is to improve the implementing of project ”Be A Change” by

studying principal project managment steps that ensure the delivery. To answer the
question, the author comes up with two sections. Firstly, which steps or activities need
to be improved in current processes. Secondly, what are challenges the project team
might face with when they applied the current working style and structure.

The emprical data was conducted by case study analysis. The in-depth interviews were
carried out by individually interviews with five respondents who were ”Be A Change”
project managers. Participant observations were done through participating events in
Helsinki and Tampere.

The result found demostrated that the initiation and closure phases were overlooked in
the process. That led to challenges for the team through fluctuating structure and gap in
information. The author proposed a framework including key action points focusing on
initiating and closing phases of the project. Moreover, supplementary activities for
effective planning were suggested

Further research can be suggested is how to control work result in volunteering

organization or how to manage a multi-cultural organization. Another research can
study on learning environment in ” Be A Change” as it is one of the add value the
project brings to organization. Beside that, further research can enquire the joint impact
of cooperating between associations. Moreover, next research can investigate strategies
to do fundrasing for a social project.

57
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60
APPENDIX

In-depth interview result

1. Interview with Linh Nguyen, the president of AIESEC in Tampere:
a. How did you know about ”Be A Change”?
I knew about BEACH through a friend who was in OC 2009 & promotion in AIESEC
conference.
b. How much did you know about social entrepreneurship before
participating the event?
I knew something about social entreprenuership but it wasn’t a clear concept
c. In you opinion, what was the results of 2 events in 2009 and 2010?
It was meaningful events, in a way to learn how to innovate, build an idea concept and
teamwork. Furthermore I like the space where it was organized. As it was my first
experience with a new concept, I was very enthusiastic and opened to everything. Thus
the satisfaction after the event was very high, although now think back, it would have
more space to improve. To grade the event, realistically and emotionally, I gave 9/10
and practicality 7/10.

I think the event in 2010 was more organized, and the value of prize was more
attractive. The event was improved. But I wished it could have had been more
facilitators. It was good in BEACH 2010 that Jury was presentd all the time, however
there was lack of time to have supervising from them. On another hand, we had more
time to self-work on our ideas.
d. What do you think about the content of events?
The contens were good. Some part were very inspried, some were more interesting than
others. But all in general was good. I would like the content go expertise on a higher
level than general knowldge of business. May be the reason is because I am a business
student.
e. What were your most like and dislike?
My most favourite was in 2009, there was contribution of facis to the team. It gave a lot
of support for us to develop idea.

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Some presentations were under my expectation. As I said, I prefered more advanced
knowledge.
f. Why did you decide to take the project into your Local Committee?
I saw there was a big need in AIESEC Tampere. Many members are interested in the
project, so do Tampere students. The HUB in Tampere is very active plus the condition
of New Factory was established. I could send you our application on expanding the
project for more reference.
g. What would you expected to see from the result of ”Be A Change”
2011?
I would like to bring the AIESEC image and apply some benefits of the organization to
the event. We could make ”Be A Change” as a recruitment event to AIESEC by
observing participants and do pocket recruitment if the person is interested in AIESEC.
We closely connect ”Be A Change” with AIESEC via posters, promotion material,
booklets for participants. We want to bring our culture to the event on purpose for
participants know more about AIESEC. That’s what I noticed that ”Be A Change” in
Helsinki did not mention much about AIESEC as the project owner.

2. Interview with Lizzy Chugunova, the project manager of Be A Change

2011:
a. When and how did you start the project?
I started to join the project in the beginning of January. First I was supposed to be the
vice manager of the project. But since the manager resigned, I replaced him.
b. How did you structure your team?
We recruited the team in February. There was 13 members in the team in total, but
about 8-10 active members. First we had the team building then training for our team
mbers and started to do sale. We din not have any role or specific structure in the team.
Everything was discussed and worked together. I think that made them more involve in
the project. And it worked better in the short term, because we had only 1.5 months.
c. How did you plan for the project?
We tracked tasks and results by weekly meeting. With the promotion, there was
university coordinators responsible for it. We did not official plan anything, but we
assigned tasks and share responsibilities among the team.
d. What were the strengths and weaknesses the team had?
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Team spirit was our strongest advantage. Everyone were excited and ...you can see how
did they feel with the event. The weakness was that we had little timeline and we re-
used the agenda from previous event.
e. What was the most challenge the team faced, in your opinion?
At first, the sale was very challenging because of cultural difficulties. Then, the hardest
thing was how to get participants.
f. How did you think about the result of the event?
The result was as it was planed and expected. Although it is not many people, I am
satisfied with that amount.
g. What would you change if you could do it again?
I would more prepare as the host of the event.
h. How was other working conditions you had?
Everything was good. I received many supports from other AIESEC members, the
board, alumni and the social part was good as well.

3. Interview with Anatasios Kos, the team leader of Be A Change 2011:

a. When and how did you start the project?
I joined the project in the end of February. Bascially I had 1 month to prepare for the
event.
b. What was your main task in the team?
I was a main runner of the project. I did companies calling, selling and holding meeting
with them. In the first 1.5 week, I raised partners and Grand Jury. Later on I took care
on logistics such as making contact, planning for the promoting and promoting, making
templates, etc. We went to universities, restaurants, shops to send our flypapers.
c. How did you plan in the project?
We planned fro the guideline of previous events. I meant the agenda. Otherwise, we had
no plan.
d. What were the strengths and weaknesses the team had?
Strengths are that we aimed to acheive to goal. There were motivated and helpful people
support us. Then there were a lots of people who like to run a business. Also
participating such an event like this is good for their CV.

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Weaknesses: To me, it’s about audiences. It was people awareness and afraid of
entreprenuership. About the team, we were lack of resources.
e. What was the most challenge the team faced, in your opinion?
In the beginning, it was difficult with companies. It was hard to point to a deal with
them. I tried to solve it throung training negotiation and selling skills.
f. How did you think about the result of the event?
We set the goal of 50 participants. There were 25 in the event. Actually it could be more
as many people agreed to come but they changed their minds in the last minutes.
However, my overall assessment of the work was successful. I feel very good with it.
g. What would you like to improve?
I would like to have more transitions such as contacts, databased and available network.
Also I want to improve the agenda and schedule on event to make it better. If there were
more time, I would had made the promotion bigger.
h. Can you tell me more about your study and why did you choose this
project as your internship?
I am studying in BA. Before I had no practical experience, that’s why I came to Finland
for this internship. And I learned a lot from it. It was great experience for me. The
working condition was also fine.

4. Interview with Meri Lundalh, the current project director of AIESEC in

Finland:
a. How did you come up with ”Be A Change” idea?
I did not come up with the idea. It was Tomi Astikainen who shared the idea in a
connection time in the conference SUCCESS 2008. There were me and others who were
interested in it. Thus I decided to implement it.
b. How did you realize the idea?
First I talked with other people and share the idea to them. When I gathered interested
people, I applied the project to the board of AIESEC and get their approval. The idea
was approved to be as a small project under the ”AIESEC 60th Anniversary” project.
However, we did not work closed together that much.
c. How did you conduct the feasibility of the project?
I did not think too much at that time. I do not like to do any research. It might be
because of my personality, I prefer to do thing at once. I did not do any research.
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Nevertheless, while persuade the board, I had to stated some reasons and opportunites
of the project. I saw it possible and very interest one

5. Interview with Julia Halkivaha, the project manager of Be A Change 2009:

a. How did you plan in the project?
We did not plan anything in the actually. When I started the project, it was so messy,
everyone was unexperienced and we did not know what to do. I remembered we had
some team meetings and discussings, but they were not effective to the result.
b. What were the challenges?
There were many obstacles with this project. Personally, I concentrated on how to get
the tasks done. But it did not work well. We had too little plan, and a short term project.
Since we started something before summer but in summer everyone traveled, nothing
was done. We did not have any framework or teambuilding. Neither was a clear task
division. It was so challenging while nobody follow the deadline. I could not contact
many members as they did not answer the phone nor reply to email. And I knew nothing
about them. Thus, I thing the most challenge is how to activate members. As some of
them joined the project just because they would like to take part in it, but not really
participate.
c. What would you like to improve?
As I mentioned, team building was not taken care. If I could do it again, I would have
had focus on more team building and structuring. So it would make us easier to work.
d. How was the previous team transfer you information needed?
Meri supported me a lot. She gave me all the information she had including a long
guideline how to organizing it. Whenever I needed, she would help me. However, as I
said, it was so many unclear thing and messy. Luckily, we got the thing done and had
kinda satisfied result.

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