Research of the Advantages of Social Entrepreneurship Development for Society, Business and State

Abstract

The scientific article formulates the author’s definition of the concept of «social entrepreneurship» including its basic principles: self-sufficiency, reinvestment of profits, innovative approaches to the organization, replication and scalability. The statistics of authoritative sources on the scale of social enterprises in the European Union are analyzed and found that their number in Ukraine is hundreds of times lower, although over the past six years there has been a significant increase caused by the war in the east and, consequently, the emergence of a new categories of vulnerable groups – internally displaced persons and the accompanying socio-economic crisis. Along with the growth of existing social unrest, this gave impetus to a new round of development of social entrepreneurship in Ukraine, which actualizes the chosen topic of research by the authors. Therefore, it reveals its advantages from the standpoint of key stakeholders – society, business and the state, namely: job creation and activation of self-employment of citizens at risk, including from the standpoint of benefits of Ukrainian tax legislation and participation of internally displaced persons in international programs to support self-employment; solving the problems of local communities as a stakeholder who receives the most benefits from cooperation with social entrepreneurs, without attracting budget funds; meeting the demand of modern consumers for socially responsible business behavior, including taking into account the greedy situation after the COVID-19 pandemic; promotion of a healthy lifestyle, especially among Ukrainian youth of the Z-generation; raising the level of environmental awareness of Ukrainians; ensuring the functioning of a number of important social services that should be provided by the state, but due to lack of funding and human resources are practically not provided; expanding the social investment infrastructure through tools such as accelerators, incubators and impact hubs. Each of these advantages is justified by the data of current expert research and / or successful cases of social enterprises in Ukraine, and also contains independent author’s arguments, reflections and conclusions.