Towards Sustainability: The Innovation Paths of Social Enterprise

Abstract

The concepts of sustainable development and social economy are currently undergoing a process of convergence, determined by the extension of the concept of sustainability and the role of social enterprise. In a context in which the primary focus of management literature, especially of North American origin, concerns the concept and practices of social entrepreneurship, this paper explores the experiences of European social enterprises and in particular of Italian social cooperatives. Social cooperatives are experimenting with initiatives capable of responding to the emergence of new needs and changes in society in a sustainable way. Based on an analysis of the experience of various social cooperatives operating in the field of renewable energy sources, tourism, and the use of assets confiscated from the Mafia, this paper aims to highlight how social enterprise manages to create contexts of sustainable development, thereby building interorganizational and intersectoral collaborative networks aimed at the activation of new paths for local development. This represents evidence of the specific nature of the social enterprise, which is able to establish a number of coordination mechanisms. It creates new businesses with public and private, and profit and non-profit partners, with the aim of achieving a stated goal, or enters into contractual arrangements, in order to establish business partnerships and build entire local manufacturing supply chains. In this way social enterprise promotes interaction between resources of a public, market and community nature.

Social Enterprise as a Catalyst for Sustainable Local and Regional Development

“…Organizational social capital refers to the stakeholders, groups, and group resources that help social enterprises meet their goals [9,118]. It creates regional assets by mobilizing internal resources and develops mutual solidarity within regions [119][120][121][122]. Activity-based social capital forms networks among organizations to help maintain social enterprises as businesses.…”

From Distant Neighbours to Bedmates: Exploring the Synergies Between the Social Economy and Sustainable Development

“…Therefore, new avenues to scaling that extend beyond mere organizational growth, and thereby protect participation and democracy, are particularly useful (Vickers and Lyon ). Social enterprises experiment with such scaling avenues with a sustainable development objective through a variety of strategies including replication (Blundel and Lyon ; Vickers and Lyon ), socially entrepreneurial networking (Davies ; Huybrechts ; Picciotti ; Yujuico ), collaboration with governments under public policies (Laville et al. ; Mulgan ), and partnerships with businesses focused on sustainability (Di Domenico et al.…”

“…Examining Italian cases in the fields of renewable energy sources, tourism, and the use of assets confiscated from the Mafia, Picciotti highlights the capabilities of social enterprises to foster inter‐organizational and inter‐sectoral collaborative networks aimed at local development. These capabilities are analysed as innovative coordination mechanisms that involve interactions between resources of a public, market and community nature (Picciotti ).…”

“…In sum, the six papers all highlight the capacity of social enterprises to engage with sustainable development in an innovative way. They complete each other nicely in examining the emergence of social economy‐based sustainability innovations (Picciotti ; Vézina et al. ), their institutionalization (Pel and Bauler ), ‘common good‐oriented’ governance process (Périlleux and Nyssens ), involvement of users‐members (Bauwens and Defourny ), and capacity to deal with tensions (Brummer et al.…”

FINANCING STRUCTURE AND FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF SELECTED SADC MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS (MFIs)

“…Commercial financing ‘pressures’ MFIs to be cost‐efficient. This promotes MFI survival through profit realization or financial sustainability, thereby broadening outreach (Johnson ) – a move described by Picciotti (: 1) as the ‘convergence of sustainable development and social economy’. The Industry Perspective has seen NGOs adopting commercial financing methods and financial sustainability (Campion and White ).…”