ABSTRACT
The increasing acknowledgement of the third sector in Europe, together with the broader interest in non-conventional entrepreneurial dynamics addressing current challenges, led to the emergence of the new concept of ‘social enterprise’. Whereas a dozen years ago this concept was rarely discussed, it is now making amazing breakthroughs on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, it first met with a very positive response in the early 1990s1. In 1993, Harvard Business School launched the ‘Social Enterprise Initiative’, one of the milestones of the period. Since then, other major universities – including Columbia, Stanford and Yale – and various foundations have set up training and support programmes for social enterprises
broad and often quite vague concept, referring primarily to market-oriented economic activities serving a social goal. The social enterprise is then viewed as an innovative response to the funding problems of non-profit organizations, which are finding it increasingly difficult to solicit private donations and government and foundation grants (Dees 1998). The concept is also used to highlight the innovative side of certain types of projects, as well as the financial risks they are taking (Young 2001). In this latter case, the concept of social enterprise includes a wide spectrum of organizations, from for-profit business engaged in socially beneficial activities (corporate philanthropy) to non-profit organizations engaged in mission-supporting commercial activity (Kerlin 2005).
