Abstract:Purpose -Twelve years ago, the concept of social enterprise was rarely discussed in Europe, however it is now making significant breakthroughs in European Union (EU) countries. Within this context, the purpose of this paper is to synthesize major evolutions experienced by social enterprises across Europe and the key challenges they are facing; and specific members of the EMES European Research Network provide a more in-depth update as to current trends and debates in their respective countries Design/methodolo… Show more
“…In a similar vein, the European research stream on social enterprises has highlighted the emergence of forms of registered cooperatives which provide services to a broader community as well as acting in a general societal interest rather than being entirely member-focused in their activities (Kerlin 2006;Defourny and Nyssens 2008). These cooperative initiatives often fill the gap left by the withdrawal of the state and focus on satisfying social needs (Gonzales 2007;Kerlin 2013).…”
In recent years, nonprofit scholars have increasingly studied the phenomenon of social enterprises which has become a generic term describing a wider reorientation among third sector organizations. The emergence of social enterprises has also led to a dynamic of hybridization and broadening in the cooperative sector, similar to an earlier dynamic of "economization", but this time on the other end of the organizational spectrum. This paper aims at developing a finegrained conceptual understanding of how this organizational dynamic is shaped in terms of member coordination, thus contributing to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of different organizational forms of cooperatives. Specifically, to highlight the difference to traditional member-focused cooperatives, the paper introduces the term third-party-focused cooperatives for those social enterprises which emphasize economic goals as well as control and ownership by a particular community (typically place-based). The key result of the paper is that with the shift from member-to community-focus in cooperatives, the main coordination mechanism becomes one of norm-based trust on the basis of generalized reciprocity. In contrast to traditional maxim-based trust member coordination on the basis of relation-specific reciprocity, this enables third-party-focused cooperatives to mobilize bridging and linking social capital, facilitating collective action aimed towards the community interest. The findings suggest that this identity shift requires a mutual re-positioning between the cooperative and the nonprofit sector, in terms of umbrellas as well as regulatory and legislative bodies.
“…In a similar vein, the European research stream on social enterprises has highlighted the emergence of forms of registered cooperatives which provide services to a broader community as well as acting in a general societal interest rather than being entirely member-focused in their activities (Kerlin 2006;Defourny and Nyssens 2008). These cooperative initiatives often fill the gap left by the withdrawal of the state and focus on satisfying social needs (Gonzales 2007;Kerlin 2013).…”
In recent years, nonprofit scholars have increasingly studied the phenomenon of social enterprises which has become a generic term describing a wider reorientation among third sector organizations. The emergence of social enterprises has also led to a dynamic of hybridization and broadening in the cooperative sector, similar to an earlier dynamic of "economization", but this time on the other end of the organizational spectrum. This paper aims at developing a finegrained conceptual understanding of how this organizational dynamic is shaped in terms of member coordination, thus contributing to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of different organizational forms of cooperatives. Specifically, to highlight the difference to traditional member-focused cooperatives, the paper introduces the term third-party-focused cooperatives for those social enterprises which emphasize economic goals as well as control and ownership by a particular community (typically place-based). The key result of the paper is that with the shift from member-to community-focus in cooperatives, the main coordination mechanism becomes one of norm-based trust on the basis of generalized reciprocity. In contrast to traditional maxim-based trust member coordination on the basis of relation-specific reciprocity, this enables third-party-focused cooperatives to mobilize bridging and linking social capital, facilitating collective action aimed towards the community interest. The findings suggest that this identity shift requires a mutual re-positioning between the cooperative and the nonprofit sector, in terms of umbrellas as well as regulatory and legislative bodies.
“…Although there is no universal definition of social enterprise, there are various definitions from researchers and state institutions [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Therefore, clarifying the definition is an important research topic, but it is not the main purpose of this study, so it is not to be introduced further.…”
Social enterprise is recognized as an alternative for sustainable development, as it balances social aspects with economic prosperity. Evaluating social enterprises is very important for both the enterprises themselves and the government, since grants from the government or institutions highly depend on their performance. While relatively significant attention is paid to the social value that these enterprises create, there is a lack of interest in assessing the operational performance directly linked to the sustainable operation of social enterprises. Therefore, this research analyzes the performance of social enterprises from the efficiency perspective, incorporating both operational (economic) and social performance measures. To this end, we apply data envelopment analysis to assess the performance of social enterprises when considering the dual-role factor-the grants. To facilitate clarity for readers, a dataset of Korean social enterprises is used. Through this analysis, we show that the grants can be used for performance evaluation in different ways for each enterprise. Furthermore, an industry-specific analysis provides more realistic and feasible benchmarking information to which inefficient social enterprises should refer. We expect that these findings will complement existing methods of social enterprise evaluation.
“…They rely on a collective dynamic involving various types of stakeholders in their governing bodies. Furthermore, they place a high value on their autonomy and bear economic risks linked to their activity (Defourny and Nyssens 2008). This set of social, economic and participatory governance criteria is to be seen as an ideal-type model as the authors have emphasized.…”
Section: Research Background and Methodologicalmentioning
At a time of rising unemployment and strained labor market policy budgets, Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) are currently facing difficult circumstances in Austria. If, and how, WISEs can continue to create and deliver quality services for their users (while meeting public authority's demands) is a topic of vigorous debate at the national level. In an endeavor to gain insight into the current situation, the focus of this paper is to explain the historical emergence of WISEs in the context of the Austrian welfare state. The analysis combines empirical data on key characteristics of ECO-WISEs -a major subgroup of WISEs with an ecological orientation -with an analysis of the institutionalization process of these WISEs, based on the outcome of a series of semi-structured interviews with key experts in the field. The discussion begins by describing their development in the 1980s, growth in the 1990s and concludes with the marketization and reorientation process experienced by these WISEs from 2000 onwards. The paper concludes with a discussion of the victories and challenges faced by these WISEs and highlights the important role that ECO-WISEs have assumed in recognizing and responding to societal needs, developing innovative services, and in meeting the requirements of policy makers.
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