Keywords: social enterprise, nonprofit organizations, Taiwan, civil society, work-integration social enterprises, governance The discourse, ”Social Enterprises in Taiwan,” zooms in on a period of about two decades, i.e.... [ view full abstract ]
Keywords: social enterprise, nonprofit organizations, Taiwan, civil society, work-integration social enterprises, governance
The discourse, ”Social Enterprises in Taiwan,” zooms in on a period of about two decades, i.e. from the mid 1990s till now. This is a time when Taiwan society went through most rapid changes in the aspects of politics, economy and social needs. It is under such an environment that a wide variety of voluntary and non-profit organizations (NPO) have gradually increased in number developed. While competition between organizations for resources became gradually stringent, a wide range of policy incentives have been introduced by the government which is keen to include NPO as a partner in tackling serious unemployment issues and other social problems. The two factors combined have prompted a significant number of NPO in Taiwan to continuously pursue a developmental path that features market orientation and industrialization while striving to fulfill their social welfare objectives. Consequently, “social enterprise” as a notion as well as a business model has found its applications in Taiwan.
Social enterprises have been developing rapidly in Taiwan in the past decade. In terms of the typology of social enterprise, work integration social enterprises (WISE) providing social services and products are the most visible forms of social enterprises in Taiwan. This type of social enterprise is deeply concerned with the socially disadvantaged minority (especially the disabled) and it is able to integrate them with the labor market by providing them with proper training and employment assistance. The introduction of Taiwan’s WISE served all types of handicapped individuals but the greater number of them was the mental retarded, individuals with multiple disabilities, autism, and physically handicapped. In addition to WISE, due to the development of civil society, community development social enterprises are also very popular in Taiwan. If referring to the attempt by Defourny and Kim (2011) to represent graphically social enterprise models as resulting from interactions between the market, the state and civil society, we would locate Taiwanese social enterprises where the state interact deeply with civil society because of the observation that the vibrant dynamics of the third sector in Taiwan will probably make the approaches adopted more "civic-oriented".
In 2006, our research team, organized by Kam-Tong Chan, Yu-Yuan Kuan, and Shu-Twu Wang, initiated a comparative study of social enterprises in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We conducted the first survey at the same year, which focused on exploring the organizational characteristics and the operational differences between the social enterprises in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The second survey on the comparative studies of the social enterprises in both regions was conducted in 2010, while the third survey was conducted in April, 2013. (Chan et al., 2007; Kuan et al., 2012) With the panel study research approach, this paper will include the results obtained from the above three surveys (2006, 2010 & 2013) on the social enterprises in Taiwan. The major analysis on the Taiwanese social enterprises in this paper will include:
I. Context for social enterprise’s development
II. Goal, impacts, and organizational characteristics
III. Operational strategies- Management and Governance
IV. Operational strategies- Governance
V. Societal sector- Facilitation from the government
VI. Societal sector- Collaboration experiences with business corporations
References:
Chan, K. T., Kuan, Y. Y. and Associates, (2007), A Comparative Study of Social Entrepreneurship in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China. Hong Kong: The PolyU.
Defourny, J. and Kim, S. Y. (2011), "Emerging models of social enterprise in Eastern Asia: a cross-country analysis”, Social Enterprise Journal, Vol.7, No.1, pp. 85-109.
Kuan, Y.Y, Chen, J.T., Lu, W.P. & Wang, S.T. (2012), Social Enterprises in Taiwan and Hong Kong: A Comparison. Taipei：Chuliu Publisher
