Is Social Innovation Fostering Satisfaction and Well-Being at Work? Insights from Employment in Social Enterprises Providing Long-Term Eldercare Services

The ‘economy for the common good’, job quality and workers’ well-being in Austria and Germany

“…We then compared certain job quality and well-being outcomes of workers in organisations following the ECG model with those of workers in the general working population. The aim of our empirical analysis was to provide insights into the effects of the ECG on job quality, but also to contribute to a relevant research gap (Casini et al, 2018), namely, job quality in the social economy and the role of work-mediated characteristics on the health of workers in this sector. This is not a trivial matter since the social economy has traditionally constituted a way for achieving labour market integration, especially for vulnerable workers (Cace and Stănescu, 2013), and it has been favoured in different countries by political measures, such as tax advantages or social clauses in public contracts (for a summary about the situation in Europe, see (Monzón and Chaves, 2017: 47–55).…”

“…In contrast, a recent study on social enterprises in the field of elderly homecare in Wallonia found that workers in these firms reported limited psychosomatic stress symptoms and low levels of emotional exhaustion. The job quality components of perceived justice, work–life balance and work pace predicted workers’ positive health outcomes (Casini et al, 2018). In relation to the health outcomes, which are the main interest in this article, different studies suggest higher absenteeism rates in cooperatives (Basterretxea et al, 2019; Grunberg et al, 1996; Ollé-Espluga and Bartoll, 2019); however, we did not find any study analysing presenteeism in the social economy.…”

“…The extent to which pro-social business initiatives, such as the ECG, are offering a good employment alternative for the working population is to date only partially known, and the existing evidence is inconclusive with regard to their work-related health outcomes. In the words of Casini et al (2018): What is surprising is that majority of previous research, especially in social economy scholarship, gives so little attention to work and organisation-related dimensions, and implicitly advances the idea that the pursuit of a social mission [. .…”

Social Enterprise, Population Health and Sustainable Development Goal 3: A Public Health Viewpoint

“…Social enterprises are also considered to contribute to health promotion and population health by themselves being a healthy workplace [ 48 49 ]. Although scarce, there is evidence pointing to a significant association between social enterprises and components of “good” working conditions.…”

“…Examples of providing “good” working conditions are enabling workers to exert some control through: participatory decision making on, for example, the place and timing of the work, and what tasks to do and how to accomplish them; placing appropriate high demands on the worker; providing adequate support at work; providing sufficient job security; offering opportunities for both professional and personal development; and giving workers the possibility to reconcile work and extra-work/family demands [ 48 ]. In addition, SEs are seen to offer job satisfaction; guarantee fair pay; prevent social isolation, any form of discrimination, and violence; enable their workers to share relevant information within the organization; and attempt to reintegrate sick and disabled people into employment [ 48 49 ].…”