Social Entrepreneuriat

Definition

According to the usually allowed definition, the social contractors are individuals who carry innovating solutions to pressing problems of the company. They identify innovating approaches to solve problems which often seemed insoluble. The contractors have or develop the capacity to bring concrete solutions, and to reconcile the economic approach with social objectives. However, this capacity does not cancel necessarily the common tension between social objectives and economic. It is not a completely new concept since there was already a “Palate of the Social economy” to the World Fair of 1900 in Paris, gathering co-operatives, mutual insurance companies, and social contractors. The reflection on the contribution of the social contractors is however more recent in France than in other countries, in particular the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Social Entrepreneuriat and entrepreneuriat collective

The relations of the social entrepreneuriat with the concept of community, either in the company, or more largely in the company, and thus with the State, are a subject of interesting debate. The social economy and interdependent, for example, includes a priori more collective forms of entrepreneuriat, but one generally agrees on the fact that it is necessary to look beyond the legal statuses, which do not determine necessarily the operation and the real social object of the company. For example, certain co-operatives or mutual insurance companies function more on criteria of economic profitability than on an object of social utility, while certain traditional companies innovate socially, and have an unquestionable utility, in spite of their legal form resting on the dominating importance of the capital in the authorities of decisions. In the same way, the social contractor necessarily does not position in a liberal field against the State, but can seek mixed economic resources (or " hybrides" , in the jargon of the social economy and interdependent).

In France, the reflection remains very binary, on these questions. Behind a social contractor, there are often a project and an effective team, making it possible to make live this project. Certain people thus locate the entrepreneuriat social in the social economy and interdependent, while others identify the latter with exclusively collective forms of management of company.

Social Entrepreneuriat and management

The traditional tools of the Management can be useful for the social contractors (for example the annual individual maintenance of paid), as well as the techniques of “alter-management”. These tools can be seen like neutrals, and be useful thus for several ends, as well capital intensive as social. There has existed for a few years in France of the trade unions of employers of the social economy, but still nothing equivalent in the field of the social entrepreneuriat. However, certain French business schools (ESSEC) and foundations are interested in it.

Bonds

Definition of the social contractor according to Ashoka (in English)

Ashoka animates also the Changemakers network, which makes it possible to find contractors offering of the solutions to social problems defined in regular intervals.

Ashoka France identifies, advises and finances each year a small number of social contractors.

Pulpit of entrepreneuriat social of the ESSEC

Social club of entrepreneuriat of the ESSEC

Work: Audacity of the social contractors, To reconcile economic efficiency and social innovation, of Virginia Seghers and Sylvain German, editions Differently.

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