This communication is intended to be presented at a panel on Social enterprise’ models in Latin America to be hold in the 6th EMES International Research Conference on Social Enterprise. The aim of the communication is to present a classification of the initiatives that recognize themselves as popular and solidarity economy (hereafter referred to as SE) in Ecuador, beyond the classification established in the current normative framework. An earlier study (Ruiz & Lemaître, forthcoming) suggests that some historically instituted trajectories such as traditional cooperativism and popular associativism and their eventual articulation with social movements alongside with more recent experiences of institutionalization, would have given rise to different categories of SE organizations.
On the basis of an empirical study carried out under the ICSEM project[1], which included structured and semi-structured interviews with several categories of actors (leaders and members of organizations, representatives of intermediary structures such as NGOs and networks, and governmental authorities), we draft four models of SE organizations: cooperatives, community organizations, organizations embedded in social movements and new forms of popular economy. These categories arise from different sources of institutionalization and differ from one to another in relation to their economic, social and political dimensions.
Hence, through a synthetic analysis, in the light of the ideal-type proposed by EMES (Defourny and Nyssens 2013) and the works of Hillenkamp and Laville (2015), we identify the distinctive features of the four SE models regarding their legal forms, type of mission, governance structure, resources, among other criteria. These models are then illustrated in different fields of activity, both established and emerging in the Ecuadorian ecosystem. It should be noted that this classification is not intended to be conclusive and therefore not generalizable. Instead of building rigid boundaries between each organizational model, this contribution seeks, from an analysis in which the macro-institutional perspective and the micro-organizational level dialogue, to account for the heterogeneity of a sector that has been widely institutionalized in Ecuador. We conclude by some final considerations regarding the SE research agenda.
References
Defourny, J., & Nyssens, M. (2013). L’approche EMES de l’entreprise sociale dans une perspective comparative (SOCENT Working Paper No. 2013/01). EMES. Retrieved from http://www.iap-socent.be/sites/default/files/SOCENT%20Pub%202013-01%20new.pdf
Hillenkamp, I., & Laville, J.-L. (2015). Theory of the social enterprise and pluralism: The social enterprise of the solidarity type. In J.-L. Laville, D. R. Young, & P. Eynaud (Eds.), Civil society, the third sector and social enterprise: governance and democracy. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
Ruiz, M. J., & Lemaître, A. (forthcoming). Economía solidaria en el Ecuador: institucionalización y tipos de organización. Ciencias Sociais Unisinos, 52.
[1] www.iap-socent.be/icsem-project
1. Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
