Examples of Social Enterprises in the Context of Turkey and Their Evaluation in Terms of Social Mission

Abstract

It is important to reveal the difference between social entrepreneurship, which has increasing amount in the business world day by day and which is the subject of many studies in the academic community, from other business models. Social enterprises have a different place from other enterprises in the business world and literature with their mechanism that puts the social mission in the center. In this direction, this study aims to verify the positioning of the social mission dimension, which is thought to be the central dimension in the academic literature, by examining its positioning in local examples from Turkey. It has been seen that the social missions at the center of the examples evaluated within the scope of the study are like bringing solutions to social problems and these initiatives continue their activities as business models that focus on their social missions. In line with the examples examined, each initiative's solution to at least one of the problems of "children with special needs, disabilities, education, poverty, information and communication technologies (ICT) exclusion, chemical dependency, environment, sustainable energy, unemployment, women's equality, rural community development, nature" has been demonstrated. It is thought that the examples discussed in the study are valuable in terms of providing local contributions to literature from the context of Turkey.