ABSTRACT
Several international conferences and platforms have been set up to allow for more exchanges made possible by the International Comparative Social Enterprise Model project. The international discussion has centred largely on the first two versions of the social enterprise, as witness the positions of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In the solidarity economy perspective, transformation and reparation dimensions are intertwined in different ways according to the experiences. In the US, the term “social enterprise” emerged at the end of the twentieth century. Harvard Business School, a pioneer in 1993 through its Social Enterprise Initiative, was joined by other major universities. The type of social enterprise proposed by the market resources school recommends more mobilisations of resources in third-sector organisations so they can better accomplish their missions. To avoid disciplinary cloistering in economic and management sciences, examining social enterprises in all their diversity calls for new ways of apprehending the problems, integrating transdisciplinary as much as intercultural approaches.
