Homeboy Industries is a company that was introduced in the 1990s for nonprofit purposes. The organization aimed to help recruit ex-gang members and encourage gang members to stop their illegal activities through the provision of jobs. The company engaged in providing employment and counselling to the reformed gangs. As it is known, ex-criminals are faced with many challenges when it comes to job recruitment, as many employers do not trust them. This forces many of them to back to crime life for survival. Homeboy Industries activities would greatly help in the mitigation of crimes in society. The company’s leading sources of income to support their activities include community-based support and donations, business ventures like Bakery in 1992, Homeboy Silkscreen, Homeboy Graffiti Removal Services and Homeboy Merchandise in 1996.
The leading cause of issues on this goal is the goals of the organization. When the organization was being established, it had only one purpose of giving an alternative source of earning for ex-criminals. However, after some time, the organization was faced with the issue of expanding its services and making them business-oriented. This has created problems in decision-making processes.
Several issues are established in this case study. The first issue is balancing social mission and business objectives. There is a dilemma whether the company should engage in profit-making activities, or it should maintain its nonprofit making activities. According to Boyle, Homeboy Industries is not after making any profits, and it needs to keep its core mission, which was to help ex gangs to better their life through job activities. If it refocuses its mission to business, it may end up losing its purpose, making it a failure. Also, this may turn away donors from supporting the initiative, which also could lead to the collapse of the company.
On the other hand, investing in a business would support Homeboy Industry’s mission through the creation of more jobs through the introduction of new companies. The main challenge of focusing on the market is that it may lead to mismanagement of funds and only making profits to a few individuals. The company needs to balance its core mission with commercial activities and only engage in activities that promote the primary purpose.
The second issue is management and decision making in an organization with a primary goal of achieving social good, not commercial benefits. The management of Homeboy Industries has dismissed several ideas brought by different people to grow the organization. The main reason for the dismissal is because they do not believe that it is by the organization’s goals. Before making decisions, Homeboy Industries need to explore the aims of business ideas. Some ideas are aimed at making profits rather than supporting social welfare. It is not wrong for Homeboy to allow profit ideologies. However, commercial engagements should have essential essence and promotion of the social goal. The main challenge in decision-making problems in Homeboy Industries is to identify the ideas which are not profit-making.
The third issue presented is the expansion of the merchandising. The business was started in 1996, and it is one of its current significant ventures. Homeboy Brand was well established in the country and selling its patents would bring the company lots of profits. Though expanding its merchandising business would be profitable, it may lead to misuse of a company like Boyle explains when he says it is not good to see youth commit crimes with t-shirts branded Homeboy on them. This would lead to a bad reputation for the organization.
Alternative Strategies
The first alternative strategy is to venture into business. Though making profits, it’s not one of the Homeboy Industries goals, and commercialization will support the critical mission of the organization. Establishing new stores will provide ready jobs for ex-gangsters who report at the offices. They will also equip with skills that will enrich them with experience, enabling them to acquire more paying jobs outside the organization. For instance, the café will provide them with customer care services.
The second alternative strategy is to review the organization’s goals to cover the commercial ideas of the company. The reason why there is a dilemma in decision making over which activities the company should engage in is that it does have profit-making goals. However, the purposes will need to be carefully designed not to introduce immoral activities such as corruption, greed for money, among others.
The third strategy is expanding the merchandising business. Merchandising is a crucial strategy to create awareness of what the organization does. This will increase the organization’s income through donors, as many people will get information about the activities that Homeboy Industries offers. Also, this will establish the goods and services that the company provides. Everybody wants a crime-free society, and as a result, many people will end up purchasing products or services from the organization to support the initiative. However, the company needs to review the companies or institutions that merchandise its facilities to minimize the misuse of the organization’s name.
In my opinion, I believe the second strategy will help to mitigate the available issues in the organization. Organization goals are essential in decision-making processes and the establishment of activities in an organization. This is because the decisions and activities must support organizational goals. Adding Homeboy’s organizational goals will reduce the presence of dilemmas in decision making as well as incorporating profit-making activities, which seems to be a vital issue.