ABSTRACT
The Public Benefit Corporation has emerged in the USA in response to limitations imposed on the dominant corporate model that locks in shareholder value as an overriding concern of the firm’s business model. While the previous chapter highlighted various ways of incorporating social and environmental sustainability into conventional business models, the serious limitations to this endeavour inspire seeking a more fundamental societal embedding of business under different chartering and ownership forms. In addition, the Mondragon group has a financial division, consisting of two units: The Laboral Kutxa, which provides banking services to support Mondragon cooperatives, including financial backing under reorganization and industrial transformation, and also the LagunAro EPSV which provides welfare for members covering retirement, widowhood and disability services. While cooperatives like OBOS and Mondragon are primarily established to serve their members, social enterprises go one step further beyond the conventional investor-driven business model and produce goods and services with a social purpose, or to promote social causes.
