Despite the fact that the term ‘social enterprise’ is relatively new in Poland, it might be regarded as one of the most vague in social sciences. It received initial recognition among academics, government officials and... [ view full abstract ]
Despite the fact that the term ‘social enterprise’ is relatively new in Poland, it might be regarded as one of the most vague in social sciences. It received initial recognition among academics, government officials and third sector organizations due to European Programs on social inclusion and economic reintegration after the Polish entrance to the EU in May 2004. However, there existed many organizations with features of a social enterprise in Poland long before the present recognition of this term. Some of them, rooted in a cooperative movement and non-profit sector, are even dated to the XIX century. Nevertheless, a formal definition of a social enterprise is still under construction and lacks universal agreement among scholars, policy makers and practitioners.
Taking above statements into consideration, the aim of this paper is to investigate models of social enterprises in Poland with a special regard to the historical and institutional context of their development and diversification.
In the first part of a paper, the authors follow various concepts of ‘social enterprise’, pointing how and in what way they contribute to the Polish understanding of this term. The paper investigates the approaches gathered around ‘the earned-income school of thought’ (with its both pillars: ‘the commercial non-profit approach’ and ‘the mission-driven business approach’), the perspective of the ‘social innovation’ school of thought’ and the EMES definition of social enterprise in order to define the current meaning of a Polish term.
In the main part of this paper , the authors present three models of Polish social enterprises such as: 1) cooperatives (with a division for submodel 1a - traditional cooperatives and submodel 1b -social cooperatives), 2) entrepreneurial non-profit organizations and 3) forms of work and social integration social enterprise (with a division for submodel 3a devoted to the disabled and 3b devoted to a wider group of persons threatened by social and economic exclusion). The development of each model is described in its historical background, in three basic periods: before the Second World War (the first period), during the communist rule: 1945-1989 (the second period) and transition period: after 1989 (the third period). Moreover, taking the complexity of the transition period, the authors decided to distinguish three phases of institutionalization of social enterprises in Poland after 1989: between 1989-1995 (the first phase), between 1996-2002 (the second phase) and since 2003 until now (the third phase). For each model of social enterprise the authors outline their socio-economic situation (e.g. employment creation, source of revenue, membership) and legal frameworks regulating the existence and future development chances for social enterprises.
Finally, the third part of the paper provides insights into institutional trajectories of social enterprise models with a special regard to legal frameworks for the whole sector, including the most present legal acts (and proposals) supporting the development of social enterprises. It characterizes the Polish legal frameworks for social enterprise as highly ‘traded’ or ‘sectorial’. This means that they are diversified by the model in terms of the stage of the development and institutionalization perspectives. The paper considers if there is indeed a strong need to build framework which would treat all social enterprises regardless of their legal forms, activity domains and other specific features, including their affiliation to the specific model.
The paper is based on the most recent Polish research results on social enterprises, including both quantity and quality dimensions (e.g. data from Central Statistical Office, selected national reports on each model of social enterprise, Polish literature analysis, etc.). It exists as a contribution which has been prepared within the framework of the ICSEM Project.
Keywords: social enterprise, Poland, ICSEM
References:
Ciepielewska-Kowalik A., Pieliński B., Starnawska M., Szymańska A. (2014), The First ICSEM Working Paper: Poland, Warsaw.
Poland_-_Ciepielewska-Kowalik_et_al__2_.pdf 