Towards sustainable economic development via social entrepreneurship

Abstract

This paper argues that social enterprises (SE) in EU Member States share at least following common features: the dominance of a social or societal objective over market goal, an apparent social responsibility, particularly in the field of profit distribution. However, numeric limits for the criteria of SE identification remain 'unclear': in the majority of cases there are no comprehensible requirements regarding the employment of vulnerable groups and the reinvestment of profits into social projects. Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, and Slovakia advocate accuracy and precision in dealing with the terminology surrounding SE regulatory and legal acts to the greatest extent. Being a significant facilitator of sustainable development, SE growth has a close relationship with certain macroeconomic factors. Our correlation and regression analysis clearly proves that there are certain factors of financial and social environment which have the greatest impact on the increase of the number of SE per 10,000 population, namely: Monetary Freedom, Income Distribution and Helping a Stranger. The first two factors show the impact of government regulation quality in business relation, including the links between employers and employees. The latter factor demonstrates an average social perception of so-called 'inclusion ideas' in different societies.