Case Details
Fair Employment Agency: Eliminating Forced Labour Through Ethical Business Practices
The case is inspired in the real story of Scott Stiles and the Fair Employment Agency, a non-profit employment agency, founded in Hong Kong, with the purpose of eliminating forced labour. The Agency aims to address this issue with the introduction of a new business model in the domestic worker employment agency industry, which addresses social aims while allowing companies to be profitable.
In the business model of the Fair Employment Agency, the hiring of domestic workers is made through transparent pricing and ethical practices, and foreign domestic workers are not required to pay placement fees to find jobs in Hong Kong.
This allows foreign domestic workers to be free of debts, therefore being less susceptible to exploitation by employers and employment agencies.
With this case, the instructor aims to introduce students to the concept of Social Business, as per the theory created by Prof. Muhammad Yunus in his works.
With this case, students will be able to see a real-life example of a social venture and understand how theoretical concepts should be applied in practice, in order to achieve a social goal.
Students will be able to see how the cofounders identified the business opportunity, created the business model to address the social problem, and managed the day-to-day life of the company. After understanding how the Fair Employment Agency model works, students will be asked to contribute with ideas to answer the challenges the company faced. Although the case is mostly about Social Entrepreneurship, students will also have to consider other disciplines, such as Marketing and Strategy in their analysis.