Social enterprises and cooperatives in Korea have been developed under the state’s strong guidance and control. Concerning social enterprises, the Ministry of Employment and Labor certifies social enterprises as well as preliminary social enterprises. Unlike many other countries, the Law on the Promotion of Social Enterprises which has been in force since July, 2007, provides legal grounds to certify and support social enterprises. The establishment of cooperatives is also legally clarified by the Law on the Promotion of Cooperatives which was enacted in 2012. The establishment of cooperatives is relatively easy, by reporting and registering at the local level. According to the 2016 data provided by the Korea Social Enterprise Promotion Agency, the numbers of social enterprises are 1,713, whereas those of cooperatives are 10,675(http://www.socialenterprise.or.kr).
This rapid development of social enterprises and cooperatives in a short period of time has inspired diverse theoretical perspectives in Korea. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze “social enterprise” or “cooperative” related papers by using a semantic network analysis. For this purpose, papers are collected by using RISS (Research Information Sharing Service).
This paper utilizes semantic network analysis using “network analytic techniques on paired associations based on shared meaning”(Doerfel, 1998: 16) and focusing on associations between words. It particularly focuses on keywords of published papers not to distort authors’ intention. It also relies on KrKwic for frequency and co-occurrence matrix analysis and UCINET 6.0 for degree centrality values and network visualization.
Results of semantic network analysis provide the characteristics of journals, keywords frequencies and degree centrality analysis, comparative analysis of social enterprises and cooperatives, and historical changes of theoretical debates.
The unique Korean case study will contribute to carrying out international comparative research and anticipating legal and institutional impacts on the development of social enterprises and cooperatives in other countries.
References
Borgatti, S.P., M.G. Everett, and L.C. Freeman, Ucinet for Windows: Software for Social Network Analysis, Analytic Technologies, 2002.
Doerrel, Marya L. What Constitutes Semantic Network Analysis? A Comparison of Research and Methodologies, Connections, 21(2): 16-26, 1998.
Van Attenveldt, W, Semantic Network Analysis: Techniques for Extracting, Representing, and Querying Media Content, BookSurge Publishers 2008
http://www.socialenterprise.or.kr/
http://www.riss.kr
1. Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
