Social Enterprise Models from Various Perspectives

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel proposal is based on papers derived from country contributions and transversal comparative contributions to the International Comparative Social Enterprise Models (ICSEM) Project launched in July 2013. The ICSEM Project is a worldwide research project aiming to compare social enterprise models across countries. Over 200 researchers are working together under the coordination of Jacques Defourny (CES, University of Liege, Belgium) and Marthe Nyssens (CIRTES, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium). Some 50 countries are covered, in all regions of the world.

So far, the ICSEM Project has resulted in “country contributions” prepared by local research partners to address three major topics:

1. Understanding contexts and concepts

The first part deals with historical, contextual and conceptual issues about the emergence of social enterprise in each country.

2. Mapping social enterprise models

The aim of this second part is to identify and characterize the various types/models of social enterprises: fields of activity, social mission, target groups, operational model, stakeholders, legal frameworks, and so on.

3. Institutionalization processes of social enterprise models

The aim of this third part is to analyze the extent to which social enterprise models identified here above are currently institutionalized and to examine the processes through which these institutional frameworks have emerged.

This panel proposal is made of papers focusing on the analysis of social enterprises from three quite different and complementary perspectives. Challenging the widespread idea that social enterprise is a tool to earn market income because of shortages in other resources, the first paper explores the actual financial needs of social enterprises in Italy and the evolution of their resource mix. The second paper looks at the SE landscape in Israel and observes a wide diversity of forms of incorporation, which suggests social enterprises do not form a distinct “sector”. Then, combining legal forms and resource mix as key parameters, the last paper adds three “principles of interest” (public, mutual and capital interest) to propose a mapping tool and a typology of major social enterprise models internationally.

Paper 1: Financing Social Enterprise: a New Perspective Drawing on an Italian Survey
Paper 2: The Social Enterprise Phenomenon: A New Societal Sector in Israel?
Paper 3: Towards an International Typology of Social Enterprise Models

Sub Unit

• Social Innovation and Social Enterprise

Chair

• Mary O'Shaughnessy, University College Cork

Individual Presentations

• How do Italian social enterprises differ? Evidence from the last Italian Census - Simone Poledrini, Department of Economics; University of Perugia;; Carlo Borzaga, ISSAN - Istituto Studi Sviluppo; Giulia Galera, University of Trento

• The Social Enterprise Phenomenon: A New Societal Sector in Israel? - Benjamin Gidron, School of Business Administration; Inbal Abbou Abbou, Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts, Tel-Aviv

• Towards an International Typology of Social Enterprise Models - Jacques Defourny, University of Liege; Marthe Nyssens, Universite Catholique de Louvain

Session Organizer

• Jacques Defourny, University of Liege