Strategic Leadership for Social Economy Organisations through the 8Ps of Marketing

Lead and Host Institution: Santarém Polytechnic University (IPSantarém), Portugal — Pedro Oliveira, Frederico Albuquerque (invited lecturer)

Partner Institutions: Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Spain) — Jordi Regi, Pedro Rincón; Goce Delčev University (North Macedonia) — Natasha Miteva

External stakeholders: Municipalities, NGOs, cooperatives, social care organisations (e.g., IPSS), and social enterprises

This Flavour School explores how leadership and marketing strategy can help Social Economy organisations respond to real management challenges. Working in international and interdisciplinary teams, students will engage with real stakeholders and use the 8Ps of marketing as a practical framework to improve value creation, stakeholder relationships, communication, access, and organisational processes.

The course combines workshops, challenge-based learning, mentoring, and collaborative problem-solving to help students design realistic and socially meaningful action plans for organisations working for public and social impact.

Onsite sessions: Students will take part in hands-on workshops, faculty-led sessions, stakeholder engagement moments, challenge-based teamwork, mentoring, and validation activities. They will diagnose an organisational challenge, redesign processes and stakeholder engagement strategies, prototype solutions, and develop an SDG-linked Action Plan with priorities, risks, resources, and a 90-day roadmap. The week will conclude with a final demo/pitch and feedback from faculty and stakeholders.

Follow-up / reflection: Learning is consolidated through short reflective learning logs, a final team pitch/demo, a Team Action Plan, and an individual reflective portfolio.

• Diagnose a real management or marketing challenge in a Social Economy organisation using a Problem-Based Learning approach.
• Apply the 8Ps of marketing as a management framework, not only as a communication tool.
• Redesign key processes, stakeholder relationships, and value delivery mechanisms.
• Produce an SDG-linked Action Plan with priorities, resources, risks, and a 90-day roadmap.
• Demonstrate purpose-driven leadership through explicit decision criteria and responsible communication.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Analyse a real organisational challenge in the Social Economy sector.
• Apply the 8Ps framework to support strategic decision-making and organisational improvement.
• Co-design realistic and impact-oriented solutions with stakeholders.
• Communicate and defend an action plan through a professional team pitch.
• Work effectively in intercultural and interdisciplinary teams.
• Reflect critically on leadership, ethics, impact, and responsible communication in practice.

This course may be suitable for students from ACE²-EU partner universities enrolled in postgraduate programmes (especially Master’s level), and also for final-year undergraduate students, in fields such as management, marketing, Social Economy, communication, social sciences, public administration, entrepreneurship, and digital/business support.

This course may be suitable for those who have an interest in leadership for impact, stakeholder engagement, organisational strategy, social innovation, challenge-based learning, and working with real organisations in international teams.

Recommended Language Level: English B1–B2.