ABSTRACT

The question why social enterprises (SEs) adopt particular governance structures and legal forms is tremendously complex, and the state of literature on the institutional choice and comparative advantages of the cooperative form is still somewhat poor in several respects. The identification of critical factors determining the attractiveness and relative performance of cooperative social enterprises (CSEs) has remained national and largely monodisciplinary. This chapter tackles the following question: “Which elements of the institutional context shape the characteristics of CSE?”. It aims to generate preliminary propositions about how contextual elements interact with certain characteristics of CSE, and how such contextual elements might influence the choice of the cooperative form.