SOCIAL ENTERPRISES AS DRIVERS OF LOCAL DEVELOPMENT: A FRAMEWORK

The social enterprises (SE) are taking hold as key players in the processes of local development producing social, economic and environmental effects (Borzaga, Tortia, 2009; Borzaga, Galera, 2014; Eversole, 2013). Since SEs may assume a range of different organisational forms and despite the fact they are commonly spread across many countries, there is not any agreement on a unique and common definition yet (Doherty et al., 2014; Phillips et al., 2015; Picciotti, 2013). Certainly, SE's objective is to pursue a social goal, but they can also act as drivers of local development, supporting the local community growth and its economic development. Empirical research shows that across Europe SEs not only increase the community wellbeing, providing product and services, fostering cohesion and collaboration among community members and institutions, but they also act as drivers of local and regional economic development (Birkhölzer; 2009; Eversole, 2013). This paper aim is to provide an ideal-type model of SE which can help in drawing its boundaries; secondly, a new framework on how SEs produce local development through social, economic and environmental outputs is proposed.