1) Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of Japanese social enterprises in rural areas and the issues they face when they are considered as work integration social enterprises (WISEs).
Japan’s legal system does not recognize social enterprises, which has thus made it difficult to undertake pertinent statistical studies. To examine social enterprises identified as WISEs, we therefore organized a research team funded by National Federation of Workers and Consumers Insurance Co-operative Association, and together shared our research across five fields (Fujii et al, 2016). We first reviewed all Japanese studies with “social enterprise” in their title to extract a sample of typical organisations. We then conducted semi-structured interview research in each field from December 2015 to May 2016. This paper contains a part of the results of this research.
2) Background
In recent years, Japan has focused on social enterprises, a term adopted by the Ministry of Economy and Trade, as a means of resolving social problems. Such enterprises have American organizational styles (Fujii, 2010), and they are primarily found in urban areas. In contrast, social enterprises with social goals and business characteristics have already existed in rural areas since the late 1950s; they sought to create work spaces and “their own places in life” for farmers’ wives who were in poverty and rough living conditions and socially excluded (Ichida, 1995). These rural enterprises originally had many shared characteristics and were the forerunner of WISEs in Japan. Now, there are 9,719 of these so-called “Rural Women’s Enterprises (RWEs)”.
RWEs generally form close-knit bonds among their members, and so their membership tend to be homogeneous and exclusive. Today, aging is advancing among members, and their numbers have been decreasing every year. But nowadays, new trends are being seen in some areas. One is the endeavours of many small RWEs to cooperate to builds allied organisations together. Another is movements wherein some RWE members create spin-off groups, or some local people in rural areas working on non-profit activities start new community-based businesses. Both produce similar effects in term of breaking through and restructuring closed relationships in rural areas. Let’s now call them “Rural Community Enterprises (RCEs)”.
RCEs have some features in common. First, they tend to have democratic governance structures, because they include women, youths, and newcomers who have never become core members of jichi-kai, neighbourhood community associations that exist everywhere in rural Japan. Second, while RCEs are based on strong and closed ties such as with RWEs and neighbourhood community associations, they are building robust local networks through business collaborations and new types of mutual support, including time banking activities. Finally, RCEs act not only as front line organisations but also as infrastructure organisations for member groups due to lack of public support.
In Japan, social enterprises are more likely to be considered as business organizations run by entrepreneurs who ingeniously solve social problems. Therefore, local business activities in rural areas have rarely been identified as social enterprises. But as demonstrated above, we can see that RCEs have many of the same characteristics as European Social Enterprises.
3) Conclusion
Historically, the growth of RWEs has been guided at the prefectural level, by technical staff in forestry and agriculture departments: this has resulted in sparse local networks, and the personnel cuts that have accompanied administrative reform have made sustainable management even more difficult. RCEs are new, open organizational entities founded on traditional, cohesive personal relationships. While they continue to rely on these close relationships, their openness encourages all kinds of people to participate, from rural areas and cities alike. RCEs not only have similar efficacy to creating entirely new communities, they lead to the formation of horizontal networks.
These characteristics are promising sign to those thinking about the sustainability of rural areas. As with cooperative manufacturing centres and farmer’s market shops, RCEs keep a certain level of assets for supporting their member organizations’ sustainable activities. The participation of members and local people in RCEs’ management and activities begins to create solidarity economy and micro-level public spaces. The efforts of RCEs show the possibility of sustainable management and operations even in rural areas facing increasing depopulation and aging.
References
Atsushi Fujii, Kohki Harada, Yurie Kumakura, Reeya Komoda, Rei Imai and Joungin Park, 2016 “The development process and the current situation of Japanese WISEs, from the research of infrastructure organizations of WISEs,” report funded by National Federation of Workers and Consumers Insurance Co-operative (Japanese).
Ichida, T. (1995) “Concept and Policy of Promotion Services for Home Living Improvement”, Quarterly Journal of Agricultural Economics, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, pp.1-63 (Japanese).
Harada, K., Fujii, A. and Matsui, M. (2010) Reconstruction of NPO, the conditions of partnership, Keiso Shobo (Japanese).
1. Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
