In Israel, the common terms used by the public for social enterprises (SE) are Social Businesses and Social-Business Entrepreneurship. These terms typically refer to a social enterprise that is registered as a business or to a non-profit organization (NPO) that has a business subsidiary. Cooperatives were traditionally regarded a separate phenomenon and only recently have been considered as part of the SE field. In contrast, the academic study of the field began with a focus on the NPO model (Benziman, 2009; Abrutski & Askenazi, 2011), subsequently expanding to include cooperatives (Solel, 2011) as well as business entities (Gidron & Abbou, 2012), primarily WISE-type enterprises.
In the current sphere of Israeli SEs we identify three models according to their legal status: (1) Social Businesses, (2) NPOs, and (3) Cooperatives. Each model has distinct characteristics in terms of its social mission, economic project, and governance structure. These findings are in line with the ICSEM model (Defourny & Nyssens, 2012), showing that each model is located in a different area of the SE ‘Galaxy’. In our paper we briefly describe the social enterprise phenomenon in the context of its historic, economic, social, and political processes as well as the relationships between the state, the business, and third sectors over the years. We describe and focus on each model followed by a discussion of the ICSEM categories of governance and ownership, economic project, social mission, and the unique challenges of each model.
References
Abrutski, G. and Askenazi, A. (2011). Social Entrepreneurship in Israel 2011, Mapping and Future Directions. Nova NPO [Hebrew]. Retrieved March 20, 2014 from http://www.goodvision.co.il/images/File/Nova%20Case%20Study.pdf
Benziman, R. (2009). More than philanthropy alone – Social business enterprises in Israel. Ford Foundation and Dualis foundation for social business entrepreneurship. (In Hebrew) Retrieved March 4, 2014 from http://www.sheatufim.org.il/multimedia/upl_doc/doc_140210_115761.pdf
Defourny, J. and Nyssens, M. (2012). The EMES Approach of Social Enterprise in a Comparative Perspective. EMES European Research Network, WP, (12/03).
Retrieved April 27, 2014 from: http://dial.academielouvain.be/vital/access/services/Download/boreal:114773/PDF_01
Gidron, B. and Abbou, I. (2012). The Phenomenon of Social Businesses: Some Insight from Israel in Gidron, B. and Hasenfeld, Y. (Eds.) Social Enterprises: An
Organizational Perspective, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 144- 161.
Solel, Y. (2011). Social Cooperatives for work integration. The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (Hebrew). Retrieved January 15, 2015 from
http://www.vanleer.org.il/sites/files/product-pdf/2_papers_nyar_emda3_0.pdf.
