More than money - examination the quality of jobs created by social enterprises

The aim of my presentation is to examine the job quality created by social cooperatives in Hungary. The central statement of the job quality concept is that features of work relations and conditions influence the employee’s... [ view full abstract ]

The aim of my presentation is to examine the job quality created by social cooperatives in Hungary. The central statement of the job quality concept is that features of work relations and conditions influence the employee’s physical and mental state, social relations, future opportunities, employment commitment and productivity as well.
According to international trends, employment is less and less capable of fulfilling the goals of welfare policies. The number of working poor increases, while a significant proportion of post-recession job opportunities is unstable and involuntary.
Several research studies of EMES Network have confirmed that social enterprises possess institutional features (like explicitly aiming to benefit the community, restricting the distribution of profit, having a participatory and democratic nature, multi-stakeholder structure) which promote the outcome and the social utility of the given organization (e.g. unique recruitment mechanism, innovation ability, reducing information asymmetry). The main emphasis of the research is on the system of goals, economic sustainability, training opportunities and how socially embedded they are, while in the meantime there is not enough research dealing with the employment as an integrational process. That is not to say that certain dimensions of job quality do not appear in any research, but there is no investigation that would be systematic, comprehensive enough, neither in terms of Hungarian, nor in foreign research. Social enterprises can play an important role in supporting the realization of the concept “make work pay”, promoting the social mobility of disadvantaged employees.
The Hungarian context is interesting for two different reasons. First of all, in Hungary for disadvantaged people probably the only legal opportunity to find work is public work, which institutionalizes a poor job quality. Second, the current government made several changes to the regulations on social cooperatives. The introduction of the specific labour status as well as strengthening the role of local authorities in my judgement jeopardizes the system-specific features of social enterprises and undermines the social nature of jobs created.
I have involved six dimensions of job quality (wage and fringe benefits, security, work-life balance, intrinsic value of work, relationship of work and skills, physical and mental hazards). I have examined two social cooperatives as the only legal form of social enterprises in Hungary. I have included bottom-up initiatives and social enterprises which were established by local authorities. I have intended to examine good practices, supposing that the theoretical framework of social enterprises lies behind both of them. Conducting semi-structured interviews with managers and disadvantaged employees have been the main source of the research.
The results show that municipal interest has been displayed strongly in the formulation of missions and the practices of the recruitment mechanism in cases where the organizations are established by the local authorities (logic is tangibly similar to the practices of relief and public work). There is a risk that a significant proportion of those in need cannot be targeted. The study also shows that past experiences of public work have a severe impact on workers’ job satisfaction. Finally, despite formal rules of the democratic mechanism, employees have not really felt that they have a say in choosing their colleagues, working hours and job assignments. The conclusion is that it is necessary to develop external incentives as well, in order that these organizations will actually fulfill their own social objectives.
I hope that my research will contribute to the debate on the role of social enterprises and enable a more accurate assessment of social impact. The examination of job quality can help support the long-term evaluation and possible adaptation of the activation practice of social enterprises, which are different from state practices.