Social Entrepreneurship Across the European Union: An Introduction

  • Christine Volkmann
  • Simona Irina Goia (Agoston)
  • Shahrazad Hadad
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Contributions to Management Science book series (MANAGEMENT SC.)

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship has become an indispensable part of the economy and it is now regarded as the driving engine of social economy. The present chapter presents a short introduction into social entrepreneurship (key definitions, concepts and theory) in order to create the setting for detailing the emergence and development of social entrepreneurship in various countries within the European Union. The next sections provide insights into the scale and legislative, social and economic framework regarding social entrepreneurship at the level of the European Union and across some of its member states in an attempt to establish whether social entrepreneurship is harmonised both from the standpoint of regulatory bodies and practitioners. Moving on, we get the readership familiarised with different initiatives of social entrepreneurship at academic level but also at the level of practitioners and regulatory bodies. The closing section presents one case study from a European country in order to improve the understanding of the idea and the implementation of social entrepreneurship in the European Union and to underline the potential challenges that might arise within this context.

Keywords

Social entrepreneurship Social enterprise Legal structures European Union Harmonization 
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Web Pages

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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Christine Volkmann
    • 1
  • Simona Irina Goia (Agoston)
    • 2
  • Shahrazad Hadad
    • 2
  1. 1.University of WuppertalWuppertalGermany
  2. 2.Bucharest University of Economic StudiesBucharestRomania

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