Introduction

An important development of the past decade, especially since the economic crisis of 2008, has been the increased interest and proliferation of variegated forms of social enterprises. While social enterprises have a long history they have gained currency in the changing political and economic environment. Very broadly, social enterprises are organizations that are driven by a social mission and apply market-based strategies to achieve a social (or environmental) purpose. These vary from organizations or enterprises that find new creative ways to integrate marginalized populations (the homeless, ex-convicts, persons with handicaps, etc.) into society by creating suitable employment opportunities for them to others that focus on environmental issues, such as cooperatives that invest in wind turbines in order to protect the environment and save on energy cost. The spread of social enterprises has been global, and it received a big boost after Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his innovative work on micro-financing. The idea of combining social (or environmental) purposes with a business orientation and creating an organization to carry out a social mission coupled with successful business ventures is intriguing and attractive to social entrepreneurs, investors, researchers and policymakers alike. Indeed, in several countries, such as the UK, the US, Belgium, Finland and Italy there are policy initiatives to promote such organizations (see Chapter 9).