Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the social enterprise concept at an international level. It provides a comprehensive overview of the existing literature in this subject area and focuses on the legal implementation of social enterprises....

The European social model has always been characterized by the active role played in the production of goods and services by a variety of organizations that differ both from private corporations and public institutions. These are private organizations that, while active on the market, typically...

This report summarises the findings of the project 'Benchmarking the socio-economic performance of the EU social economy'. Across the 27 Member States, the social economy includes more than 4.3 million entities1. Social economy entities are mainly cooperatives, mutual benefit societies,...

The Social Economy is increasingly attracting the interest of policy makers and scholars alike, thanks to its capacity to tackle key social and economic issues. While the importance of the Social Economy has been recognised by the EU, its role in supporting local development in other continents...