Routledge Studies in Social Enterprise & Social Innovation
About the Book Series
Over the last decades, in parallel to major changes towards privatization in the welfare regimes of advanced industrialized countries, social innovation, social enterprise and social entrepreneurship have gradually become "à la mode". They are interpreted in policy documents in market-economic terms, making social enterprises a valuable partner for policy makers looking for innovative ways of addressing social and societal problems, among which bringing the excluded back into society and increasing social cohesion. However, balancing active citizenship and empowerment, on the one hand, and market-based social service delivery and innovation in a sustainable manner, on the other, represents a daunting challenge.
In this context, social innovation is conceived as creative solutions to existing wicked social problems, at the level of both concrete outcome and process; and social enterprises are heralded as vehicles for such societal improvement. However, beyond the superficial approaches to social innovation, its relationship with social enterprises and social entrepreneurship remains to be better understood and systematized. Therefore, the series invites contributions that are committed to understanding the complexity of these transformations by engaging in new dialogues within and among all regions of the world, each with its specific historical, cultural, social and political contexts, as well as among disciplines, as these evolutions must be tackled in their multi-dimensional nature.
Social Business Hybrids and Economic Inclusion: The Empowerment of Marginalized People
1st Edition
By Luca Mongelli, Francesco Rullani
December 29, 2025
This book addresses marginalization as a form of disempowerment – social, economic, and political exclusion that prevents people from realizing their potential. In response, it explores how organizations can foster empowerment, focusing on Social Business Hybrids (SBHs), which use market-based ...
Solidarity Economy: Alternative Spaces, Power and Politics
1st Edition
Edited
By Ana Margarida Fernandes Esteves, Tom Henfrey, Luciane Lucas dos Santos, Leonardo Leal
January 30, 2025
Solidarity economy-based alternative spaces result from an interface among structural factors, institutional regimes and forms of collective action that mobilise narratives of change, collective identities and non-capitalist economic practices. This book analyses how solidarity economy initiatives ...
Social Enterprise, Health, and Wellbeing: Theory, Methods, and Practice
1st Edition
Edited
By Michael Roy, Jane Farmer
May 31, 2023
In recent decades, governments have promoted social enterprise as a means to address welfare and tackle disadvantage. Early academic work on social enterprises reflected this development and engaged with their ability to deliver and create jobs, work towards remedial environmental goals, and ...
Social Enterprise in Western Europe: Theory, Models and Practice
1st Edition
Edited
By Jacques Defourny, Marthe Nyssens
January 09, 2023
In the last two decades, the quest for a widely accepted definition of social enterprise has been a central issue in a great number of publications. The main objective of the ICSEM Project on which this book is based was to show that the social enterprise field would benefit much more from linking ...
Social Innovation in Latin America: Maintaining and Restoring Social and Natural Capital
1st Edition
Edited
By Sara Calvo, Andrés Morales
September 26, 2022
The Latin American continent contains an incredibly rich diversity from which humans derive a range of ecosystem services (e.g. material goods, cultural benefits, climate regulation, etc.) that contribute to livelihoods and well-being. It has become critical to reconcile social and environmental ...
Social Enterprise in Central and Eastern Europe: Theory, Models and Practice
1st Edition
Edited
By Jacques Defourny, Marthe Nyssens
August 29, 2022
In the last two decades, the quest for a widely accepted definition of social enterprise has been a central issue in a great number of publications. The main objective of the ICSEM Project (on which this book is based) was to show that the social enterprise field would benefit much more from ...
People-Centered Social Innovation: Global Perspectives on an Emerging Paradigm
1st Edition
Edited
By Swati Banerjee, Stephen Carney, Lars Hulgard
March 31, 2021
Social Innovation is emerging as an alternate interdisciplinary development pathway of knowledge and practice that aims to understand and address contemporary complexities and multi – dimensional social realities. BEPA (2011) defines social innovation as, ‘innovations that are social in both their ...
Social Enterprise in Asia: Theory, Models and Practice
1st Edition
Edited
By Eric Bidet, Jacques Defourny
March 31, 2021
In the absence of a widely accepted and common definition of social enterprise (SE), a large research project, the "International Comparative Social Enterprise Models" (ICSEM) Project, was carried out over a five-year period; it involved more than 200 researchers from 55 countries and relied on ...
Social Enterprise in Latin America: Theory, Models and Practice
1st Edition
Edited
By Luiz Inácio Gaiger, Marthe Nyssens, Fernanda Wanderley
March 31, 2021
In the absence of a widely accepted and common definition of social enterprise (SE), a large research project, the "International Comparative Social Enterprise Models" (ICSEM) Project, was carried out over a five-year period; it involved more than 200 researchers from 55 countries and relied on ...
Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rural Europe
1st Edition
By Ralph Richter, Matthias Fink, Richard Lang, Daniela Maresch
March 31, 2021
Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rural Europe investigates how social entrepreneurship advances social innovation in rural Europe and contributes to fighting social and economic challenges in these regions. Based on longitudinal data collected in four European countries, this book explains...
Theory of Social Enterprise and Pluralism: Social Movements, Solidarity Economy, and Global South
1st Edition
Edited
By Philippe Eynaud, Jean-Louis Laville, Luciane dos Santos, Swati Banerjee, Flor Avelino, Lars Hulgård
March 31, 2021
In the past decades, social enterprise has been an emerging field of research. Its main frameworks have been provided by Occidental approaches. Mainly based on an organizational vision, they give little or no room to questions such as gender, race, colonialism, class, power relations and ...
Social Innovation: Comparative Perspectives
1st Edition
By Helmut Anheier, Gorgi Krlev, Georg Mildenberger
December 18, 2020
Social Innovation: Comparative Perspectives investigates socio-economic impact. Since it is hard to establish causality and to measure social properties when investigating impact, especially at the level of society, the book narrows down impact to one priority aspect: social innovation – understood...