ABSTRACT
Work-integration social enterprises today stand out as an important remedy for social challenges, such as mass unemployment and social marginalization. A lot of claims are and have been made about social enterprises in the socio-political debate in Sweden. Miller and Rose refer to the prevailing govern mentality of the post-industrialized world as advanced liberal', a rationality which according to them is characterized by an increased localization of power to individual citizens and civil society-driven initiatives. In this chapter, concepts from neo-institutional analysis, such as institutional rationality, and cognitive and normative legitimacy are also used to examine the implications of various institutional framings of social enterprises and their possible contradictions. In the definition of work-integrative social enterprises provided by the Swedish state authority in charge of the growth and development of social enterprises, the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, three forms of WISEs are described.
