The paper aims to explore social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in Southeastern Europe, based on a comparative analysis of the cases of Croatia, Serbia and Greece.
During the last fifteen years, there is growing acknowledgement of social entrepreneurship, and social enterprises in particular, the European Commission has emphasized on the importance of the sector through policy recommendations and dedicated programmes which are not only influencing the developments in European Union member states, but also in accession candidate countries, as well as outside the EU.
Besides the analysis and comparison of the legal and institutional frameworks, a special focus is how international, European and national actors are shaping the development of Social Enterprises in Croatia, Greece and Serbia. The paper attempts to identify the stages of development, similarities, differences and challenges of the emerging sector.
In order to focus, the working hypothesis of the research is the following: The development of Social Entrepreneurship in Southeastern Europe, comparing the cases of Croatia, Serbia and Greece is a result of the influence of International and European actors in region.
Research Methodology
The thesis utilizes a set of twenty-nine semi-structured interviews conducted face-to-face (conducted in Athens, Greece and Vienna, Austria), over phone and Skype (Athens, Belgrade, Cakovec, Karditsa, Thessaloniki, Trento, Vienna, Zagreb) , and written with representatives of National Ministries, civil society organisations active in the field, social enterprises, policy- makers, researchers and activists in summer 2016 and winter 2016/2017, in order to understand the domestic and international and European context. Interviewees where chosen from following stakeholder groups: Academia, researchers, NGOs, support organisations, government administration, social enterprises, foundations, financial institutions etc. The variety of stakeholders was needed in order to achieve a multidimensional picture of the sector, to identify agreement or/and disagreement on the development of the sector on a country-basis and to be able to compare the three cases of Croatia, Serbia and Greece.
Secondary research consulting selected sources like reports and policy papers from institutions like the European Commission, the OECD, UNDP and national authorities. Additionally, reports and researches by research centres, think tanks as well as relevant articles in academic journals and publications, like Euricse Working Paper Series, EMES Working Papers, ICSEM Working Papers, etc. have been consulted.
In the first chapter, I give an overview of Social Entrepreneurship from a theoretical perspective and how it has developed in Europe and Southeastern Europe as well as a short presentation of the socioeconomic context of the region during the economic crisis. A presentation and comparison of legal and institutional frameworks in Croatia, Greece and Serbia, is following in the second chapter, where I dedicate a section on legal forms and models that are existing prior or created through changes and additions in the legal and institution environments. The third chapter is dedicated to international, European and national actors and their contribution in the field of Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprises. Finally, the fourth chapter looks into trends and challenges of the sector, based on the interviews conducted, comparing Croatia, Greece and Serbia. In the conclusions, findings relating to the working hypothesis and policy proposals are presented
Indicative Sources
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6. Institutionalization, scaling up and public policies
Zoehrer_EMES_Conference2017.pdf 