Social Enterprise: Ideological Origins And Social Infrastructure

The social enterprise is an organization that trades in the market for a social purpose, which can trace its origins back to medieval guilds. Development of social enterprises today is an important expression of civil society, and is social innovation of multi-sectoral cooperation in solving social and economic problems. Social aims, enterprise orientation and social ownership are the three important features of a social enterprise. Sociality is its primary properties. A social enterprise is in the pursuit of social interests instead of the maximum of profits. A social enterprise trades in the market, using market mechanisms and following market rules. Social enterprise has social ownership and the corresponding multiple-stakeholders management structure, which make the social enterprise is different from other organizations.The slowing down of the economy in the developed countries in 1970s, then the reform of the welfare state and public administration, is the specific historical background of the renaissance of the social enterprise.The country variations of social enterprises and the third sector can be explained by referring to a number of factors. The most common are:the level of development of the economic and social systems; the characteristics of the welfare systems and of the traditional third sector; and the differences of the political and legal environment.The institutional interpretation of social enterprise as a peculiar incentive system shows that its sociality and social ownership properties make it can form a innovative incentive system, thus effectively solve some market ineffectiveness, providing service that market organizations or government agencies can't. Ownership and management structure that based on stakeholders make the social enterprise can be tailored to specific problems taking corresponding incentive, thus the smooth realization of social mission. Meanwhile, it also makes it become a fragile organization mode.