The objective of this paper is to compare social enterprises in France and in Spain in terms of institutional recognition, characteristics and emerging models and, finally, challenges they are currently facing. Social enterprise in both countries share indeed important common features worth to analyse in a context of shrinking public grants and blurred frontiers between the social economy and the private business sector. Comparison is also interesting since both countries are characterised by their strong social economy tradition that may partly explain the limited use of the notion of social enterprise in France and in Spain, compared to other countries.
This paper builds upon the results of European and international comparative research projects (ICSEM, TSI and Mapping social enterprises and their ecosystem in Europe). Results are of both theoretical and empirical nature.
This paper will be structured in three parts. The first part will present the institutional and economic environments to point out the main changes and their consequences for social enterprises. In a context of economic crisis and public budget constraints, new public management principles are widely spread in the public sector and, to a lower extent, in the social economy, such as increased competition and use of tendering processes, stronger managerial performance requirements and public-private partnerships. These lead to changed relations between the social economy and the state, search for alternative financial sources and increased marketization of many social economy organizations. In this context, new models of enterprises are emerging to satisfy unmet economic, social, cultural and environment needs.
The second part will focus on roots and drivers of the emergence of social enterprises in both countries. The limited use of the notion of social enterprise in France can undoubtedly be linked to the particularity of the institutionalisation process that led to the emergence of the ‘social and solidarity economy - SSE’. With the framework law dedicated to SSE in 2014, France has opted for a broad definition of SSE that includes commercial companies, the purpose of whose economic activity is social utility and whose management respects a set of conditions concerning in particular, but not exclusively, the limited redistribution of profits. A similar trend is observed in Spain, where although social enterprises are not recognized by a specific law, the Law on Social economy of 2011 can work as a framework for social enterprises that are part of the social economy, but not for the ones that exist beyond that limit. Nevertheless, the question about the positioning of social enterprises with the other poles existing in both countries – social economy, solidarity economy and social entrepreneurs (in France) or social business (in Spain) – remains controversial.
The third part will concern the identification of emerging social enterprises models, the similarities and specifications we found between these models in France and Spain and their reactions to the changes of their environment. Two groups of social enterprises’ models are identified. The first group includes traditional social economy models that move towards a more entrepreneurial dimension. The second group consists of emerging forms of social enterprises, such as new types of cooperatives and of social businesses that have a commercial business form but behave as social economy organizations.
To conclude, main challenges in both countries will be discussed. The lack of knowledge and understanding of what is a social enterprise in a context of strong tradition of social economy is considered a barrier for their development. The diversity of models and the porosity of frontiers do not facilitate this understanding either. One issue to move forward in that direction is to recognize the democratic governance and participative decision practices on the one hand and local embeddedness on the other as specific features that limit the risk of isomorphic processes. Another issue is to consider social enterprises not only as another way of doing business but as often aimed at contributing to social transformation and to more sustainable societies.
References
Díaz Foncea et al (in press): Models of Social Enterprises in Spain, ICSEM Working Papers; Liege: ICSEM Project.
European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (2016): Mapping study on Social Enterprise Eco-systems – Updated Country report on France.
European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (2016): Mapping study on Social Enterprise Eco-systems – Updated Country report on Spain.
Fraisse, L., and al. (2016) “Social Enterprise in France: At the Crossroads of the Social Economy, Solidarity Economy and Social Entrepreneurship?”, ICSEM Working Papers, No. 34, Liege: ICSEM Project.
Petrella F., Richez-Battesti N., et al. (2016), National report on Third sector barriers in France, TSI project, working paper n°4.
Salamon L. and Sokolowski W. (2014), The Third Sector in Europe: Towards a Consensus Conceptualization, TSI project, working paper n°2.
1. Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
