Social and Solidarity Economy: Our common road towards Decent ...

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SOCIAL AND SOLIDARITY ECONOMY ACADEMY organizations. The fundamental aim is to find solutions and to meet needs that are constantly changing and evolving. The close links that these organizations maintain with the users/beneficiaries (whether they are members of the organization or not) without confining themselves to “market signals” means that they focus constantly on adapting in order to continue to fulfil this function. Voluntary involvement and autonomy A distinctive feature of cooperatives, mutual benefit societies and other associations is that people are under no obligation to become involved; they do so freely on a voluntary basis. In some countries or under specific periods, social and solidarity organizations are not automatically associated with the concept of voluntary membership or collective action because these types of organizations have been used by governments or colonial authorities to organize the population in a compulsory way for production or political purposes. Collective dimension The emergence of SSEOs results from the will of people and/or groups to join forces in order to meet their own needs or those of others. This is why some authors (Defourny & Develtere, 1999) say that social cohesion and collective identity are virtually systematically associated with the social economy. Traditionally, this collective factor distinguishes SSEOs from private for-profit-making enterprises, where the entrepreneur (conceived as an individual) Passepartout - a small local network of responsible tourism in Umbria Italy LE MAT is presented as the driving force behind the initiative. The systematically collective dimension of SSEOs can be called into question. For cooperatives, mutual benefit societies and associations, the conditions in which they emerge (i.e. collective needs or commonly shared-needs) and their operating methods reflect a collective dimension, particularly in terms of pooling resources, decision-making methods and benefit distribution. However, in actual practice, this collective dimension does not exist to the same extent in all enterprises and organizations. It may be present at certain moments in the life of an organization (at the beginning, in particular) and then deteriorate (particularly when the organization becomes professionalized), although the organization need not necessarily lose sight of its initial objectives or philosophy. As previously mentioned, the collective dimension also can be questioned for particular enterprises and organizations, such as social enterprises or foundations. This collective dimension sometimes conceals a key factor in the success of social economy organizations – the leadership of their founders or leaders. This leadership is conceived as an expression of legitimacy but also as a factor in enabling access to internal and external resources (e.g. confidence, commitment, equity capital, voluntary involvement) which are more difficult to mobilize by other means. Leadership is not intrinsically antinomical to the collective dimension of an organization. But, in practice, leadership that is too strong can lead to less collective forms of governance. In fact, this is how the concept of social enterprises or social entrepreneurs emerged. These social enterprises differ from the classical structures of the social economy in that they emphasize a feature that is typical of private profit-making enterprises – the individual entrepreneur, with his or her dynamism, personal commitment and innovative practices (Defourny & Nyssens, 2009). 8 READER
SOCIAL AND SOLIDARITY ECONOMY ACADEMY Box 1.2: Corporate social responsibility and the SSE The origin of the corporate social responsibility concept is rooted in the entrepreneurial philanthropy developed in the nineteenth century, but which was particularly promoted after the Second World War. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a way “in which enterprises give consideration to the impact of their operations on society and affirm their principles and values both in their own internal methods and processes and in their interaction with others. CSR is a voluntary, enterprise-driven initiative and refers to activities that are considered to exceed compliance with the law” (ILO Governing Body, 2006). CSR programmes can be translated into a variety of activities and domains, such as donations and support to external organizations, social accounting, environmental social impact assessment, internal human resources management and risk management. Is there a link between CSR and the SSE? If yes, what could it be? So far, CSR has been a trend within some conventional for-profit enterprises as a way of redistributing parts of their surplus for social or environmental issues; improving their public image; compensating or mitigating some negative impacts generated by their activities; or improve the well-being, motivation and productivity of their employees. As far as it does not profoundly change an organization’s functioning and finality, it does not transform these enterprises into SSEOs. Yet, the link between CSR and the SSE can be established in various ways, such as when an enterprise promotes the SSE by supporting SSEOs or when a CSR enterprise creates a public benefit and participatorily managed foundation as a redistributing tool. Partnerships between SSEOs and private commercial enterprises are more frequent in the fair trade sector (e.g joint partnerships in procurement contracts and fair trade labelling related to commercialization practices) (Huybrechts, Mertens & Xhaufflair). The link can also be made in the other direction. Some SSEOs, especially the oldest and most established ones (i.e in the finance and insurance sector), can also elaborate CSR policy that would go beyond their primary objective and would improve or complement their internal operations toward staff or members. It was in this spirit that the Mondragon Group created the Mukundide Foundation in 1999 to promote community and cooperative production initiatives for sustainable development in developing countries. 1.3.4 Resources Resources are not, by definition, a criterion for distinguishing between the social economy and other forms of economy, but they provide a basis for determining where that economy stands in relation to others and identifying the issues in using various resources. The resources issue also raises the question of the autonomy of social economy organizations and indeed of any private initiative. It must be stated first that there is no single model to represent the resources of the social economy. The social economy uses public resources and resources generated by trade and the market, as well as voluntary involvement and work – a resource to which few other forms of the economy have access. SSEOs draw on resources that are provided in one way or another by their initiators and members. In a cooperative, these resources take the form of members’ shares. In an association or mutual benefit society, they take the form of members’ subscriptions. In social enterprises, this income would be in contributions to the capital or assets in kind. In foundations, endowments or bequests enable the organizations to achieve their goals. It is generally said that autonomy is the factor which distinguishes the social economy from the public economy. Yet the social economy uses public resources in the form of subsidies from national governments and in official development assistance for countries in the South. The fact that public resources are provided in this way can indicate that public authorities recognize the existence and READER 9
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