University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

THE CASE OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES: ARE THERE
OPEN QUESTIONS?
Abstract
Irene Bengo
Ph.D Student in Management Engineering
Department of Management Engineering
Politecnico di Milano
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, ITALY
The present paper aims to review the state of the art in relation to social enterprises to identify the
open issues to develop a PhD project.
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The crisis which affected the welfare system, the recognised deficiency of international
cooperation, and the credit crunch have opened new frameworks for the Social Enterprise (SE).
However, at present, there is neither a shared concept nor even a common legislative framework.
Just in Europe, there are different models and several legislative frameworks. For this reason, the
paper deals the state of the art in Belgium, Italy; Finland, United Kingdom Community, Portugal,
French.
Second, the paper tackles the concept of SE, highlighting that this debate may be reduced to two
different perspectives: the narrow one and the expanded one.
The paper concludes discussing the need to define the main dimensions which characterize SE
and to identify a performance measurement system to evaluate social performance
Keywords: Social enterprise, open questions, definition, legal framework, dimensions
Background and Context
The crisis which was effected the welfare system, the recognised deficiency of
international cooperation, and finally the recent crisis effecting the pillars of the
global economic system are currently opening new frameworks for the social
enterprise widening their market positioning.
After World War two, in most developed countries, public bodies have been
entrusted as the main actors entitled to supply general-interest services in the frame
of traditional welfare regimes, leading to the deficiencies faced by for-profit
enterprises in this field (Borzaga and Defourny, 2001). Despite the relevant and
growing amount of resources spent, the traditional welfare state became increasingly
unable to cope with the growing phenomena of inequalities and poverty and it
contextually induced passive and opportunistic behaviours by the beneficiaries.
Social exclusion became a widespread phenomenon and the resulting rising welfare