ABSTRACT
Introduction: social entrepreneurs and social enterprises Social entrepreneurs are individuals who believe passionately in benefiting the community via the running of their organisation. They are people who are prepared to ‘get their hands dirty’ to achieve their social aim and who have the determination needed to see it through. They often use social enterprise as a vehicle to carry out this work, choosing it for the independence and creative approach that can be found in a self-financing model as opposed to the more traditional method of charitable giving and grants.1 There is no universally accepted definition for social enterprises. However, their key distinguishing characteristics are that they are values-based businesses set up for social and/or environmental purpose, driven by an entrepreneurial spirit. Social enterprises devote their activities to achieving a wider social or community objective for their members’ or a wider interest, and reinvest their surpluses. To these ends, they need to be economically self-sustainable and, in this respect, they are distinct from other third sector organisations that are mostly dependent on grants and donations (as illustrated in Figure 11.1). The management of resources is also different from traditional business, as social enterprises’ surplus is asset locked, that is, reinvested in the business or in the community (for example via lower prices or delivery of services with no charge) (cf. Tortia 2010). Social enterprises should not be confused with ethical profit-distributing businesses set up to maximise profit for the benefit of their founders, or charities that are dependent on grants (even if they do generate some of their own income). Rather they aim at maximising their income generation to meet their social and environmental objectives, to be independent and sustainable.2 This enables them to be more creative and also responsive to market and community needs (Sacchetti and Tortia 2012). Although the model of supporting social wellbeing used by social enterprise has been around for several hundred years, it was in the 1990s that social enterprise development began. Since then the notion of social enterprise has become ever more popular. Social enterprises exist all over the globe with more appearing every day. According to the European Commission, there are two million social
enterprises in the EU (representing 10 per cent of all European businesses) and they employ over 11 million people (the equivalent of 6 per cent of the working population of the EU). In EU Member States, social enterprises are present in almost every sector of the economy, including banking, insurance, agriculture, crafts, various commercial services, and health and social services. In 2003, while there was a growing interest in social entrepreneurship and social enterprise, there was little to no specialist support available and most social entrepreneurs in Scotland felt isolated and in danger of losing out to other more traditional forms of business or charitable organisations. This was the starting point from which a series of Social Enterprise Networks (SENs) emerged, using a model which intentionally put social capital theory into practice. As a result these networks have developed into a meta-network of self-organised, highly-connected economic and social networks, which play a key strategic role in the social enterprise landscape in Scotland: locally, nationally and thematically. They are made up of over 20 SENs, with 400 plus active members who meet together regularly, with a combined economic impact of over £300 million p.a. The chapter focuses on how social aims and cooperative attitudes have supported the shaping networks and why this is relevant for the sustainable development of social enterprise and communities. From this background, our main aim is to evidence the processes whereby cooperation leading to the rise of networks of social enterprises in Scotland, have created a collective identity and revamped social capital, in order to serve their mission for the promotion of public interest.
