Workers or Investors? Investigating the Reciprocity Aspects among Greek Social Enterprises Members

Abstract

In Europe 160 million people are members of social economy enterprises and mutual societies. Members that work at social enterprises usually are bound with an employee relationship with their organization; on the other hand participating in a social enterprise could be their only chance to find a job, especially for economies that face a long-term recession such as the Greek economy. Social enterprises and entrepreneurs invest in reciprocity which represents that positive actions will inspire reciprocal positive actions. The main objective of this study is to examine the effect of reciprocity on members’ decision either to invest in social enterprises or to work for them acquiring in both cases the necessary shares. For this reason, a survey was conducted among Greek members of social enterprises listed in the Greek Social enterprises directory, to investigate their aspects about reciprocity and if these aspects affect their decision to work in a social enterprise or support financially them. The survey process returned 142 fully completed questionnaires. The analysis identified a sub group (5 over 27 items) of the questions used to measure reciprocity that can be used to classify participants into shareholders - members (investors) and shareholders - workers in social enterprises. It is worth mentioning that sex or other demographic characteristics of the respondents do not affect this classification while there are only aspects of positive reciprocity that have either positive or negative effect on the possibility to work in social enterprises. Social entrepreneurs and the Greek state could use these findings in order to direct and manage their expansion efforts.

Social accounting in organizations of the Social Economy: The ARTE program applied to the CLADE Group

“…In parallel to the traditional financial accounting, which systematically integrates all kind of relevant information in order to present the annual results (profits) that will the measure of success or failure for the firm, managers could focus on the value that their organizations create for society, through the development of a social accounting. In the case of cooperatives, social accounting could serve as a tool to measure the progress of the organization in the connection between social and economic aims, with is specially aligned with the 7 th cooperative principle (Cracogna, 2015;Martínez Charterina, 2015;Kontogeorgos and Chatzitheodoridis, 2019).…”

Economía Social y Economía Solidaria: un análisis bibliométrico y revisión de literatura

“…Las limitados puntos para estimular el emprendimiento en las economías de mercado de corte capitalista, permiten que muchos busquen alternativas en los emprendimiento sociales, no solo como socios, sino como trabajadores que originan impactos positivos en las condiciones socioeconómicos en rangos de la población, en especial aquellas con indicadores de alta vulnerabilidad (Kontogeorgos y Chatzitheodoridis, 2019), es por esto que instituciones como la OCDE, alienta en la promoción de la cultura emprendedora en la educación de los jóvenes, convirtiéndolo en un eje central en la educación europea, siendo alineado con el fomento de la economía social, vista como una apuesta estratégica para el desarrollo económico y social de la zona, tal es el caso de la "Declaración de Madrid" de 2017 (Espada et al, 2018), que institucionaliza el emprendimiento, articulado con modelos soportados en la economía social para ser difundido en diferentes niveles de la formación educativa, indicando que existen espacios disruptivos y emergentes para seguir promocionando la economía social, como un tercer sector, el cual alberga un carácter sostenible en su enfoque, es decir, la creación de valor sostenible (Defourny y Nyssens, 2021;Espada et al, 2018;Salamon y Wojciech Sokolowski, 2016).…”

“…Del mismo modo, la necesidad de revertir las relaciones de mercado por las relaciones humanas en función de la satisfacción de las necesidades fundamentales (físicas y sociales), a través un nuevo paradigma: el medio ambiente, y este como un nuevo modelo económico (Kontogeorgos y Chatzitheodoridis, 2019;Monna, 2017). Esta locución implica la generación, diseño e implementación de un nuevo orden de políticas públicas, cuyo enfoque innovador amplíe las posibilidades del verdadero impacto de la economía social en las comunidades que aún aquejan restricciones para el acceso a recursos financieros (Chaves y Gallego, 2020).…”

Social enterprises’ ecosystem - status quo and its auspicious development

“…Also, there is an overall positive attitude towards the development of the social and solidarity economy in the country. It is believed that SEs will grow in Greece in the following years (Kontogeorgos, Chatzitheodoridis, 2019).…”

“…The law aimed to include all citizens in the work of social enterprises and not only vulnerable groups. It defines social enterprises as economic activities which operate in accordance with the principles of democracy, equality, solidarity, cooperation as well as respect for humans and the environment (Kontogeorgos, Chatzitheodoridis, 2019). At the moment a particular legal form for SEs does not exist.…”