Social Entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic in Light of the European Migrant Crisis

The European migrant crisis is a current phenomenon which has sparked heated debate within professional circles and among the general public. This paper looks at the current situation in Europe and reflects on the problems related to the enormous increase in immigration from the point of view of the Czech Republic. On the basis of an interdisciplinary approach which combines the premise of social economic policies and the basic principles of integration policy, we aim to present a new and innovative approach to research into the respective issues. We combine the idea and the principles underpinning the operations of work integration social enterprises (WISE) and the necessity to include immigrants in the labour market, paving the way for exploiting the potential of social entrepreneurship as a tool of the integration policy of the Czech Republic. At the same time, we fill in the research gaps stemming from the absence of the respective scientific disciplines under the current socio-economic and political conditions within the Czech Republic, thereby making use of appropriate methodologies and materials available. The outcome of this paper is an analysis of the development and the current state of social entrepreneurship in the (post-)transition conditions specific to the Czech Republic. This serves as a new and hitherto unexplored parallel which enables the evaluation of the potential utilization of the integration social enterprises under the conditions specific to the current migration crisis in Europe. The presented findings and proposals are discussed with respect to the current state of research in the field both in the country and abroad and provide sufficient space for the implications these may have on integration policy.