In Italy, social cooperatives are an economic reality that is constantly expanding and plays an increasing role in the national economy. Social cooperatives are economic organizations of small-to-medium size that are strongly integrated into the local environment where they happen to develop....

With the crisis in laissez-faire philosophy and practices, cooperation has rediscovered topical relevance and, at the same time, its diversity. The case of Trentino, an Italian region with an important history of cooperatives, can serve as a way to introduce a reflection on the challenges that...

Social entrepreneurship in Croatia is a rather new phenomenon and is still poorly developed. The term appeared in the public discourse rather late, in 2006, and since then has increased to the point where a strategy for social entrepreneurship has been initiated. However, this has not been...

The current economic crisis has hit the Italian economic system hard (Bugamelli et al, 2009; Accetturo et al., 2011) and has once again highlighted the economic divide between the northern and southern regions of Italy (Banca d’Italia, 2012). Official statistics (Istat, 2012a; Istat, 2012b) outline a...

This paper contributes to the literature by carrying out the first empirical investigation into the role of different types of enterprises in the creation of social trust. Drawing on a unique dataset collected through the administration of a questionnaire to a representative sample of the...

Despite a growing interest in cooperatives, the knowledge of real economic, occupational and social dimensions of the cooperative enterprises is still little and fragmentary, at both a national and an international level. This is also the case of Italy, a country with one of the most widespread...

Thanks to the success of the country’s economic and social model, in Switzerland thinking on and practice of social economy are not so developed as in other countries. However, in the last two decades, we have observed the birth of different forms of social enterprise, initiated mainly by...

Italian social cooperation is a unique model at international level due both to its historical evolution, and to its capacity to give effective responses to the employment needs of a specific territory. The global crisis has severely affected the labour market, where the employment difficulties...

Despite the growing interest in cooperative enterprise, our knowledge of the real economic, social, and employment size of the cooperative movement, both internationally and within individual countries, is scarce and fragmentary. In Italy over the years, a number of public bodies, institutions,...

The paper aims to study the organizational structure, namely the integration developed among social cooperatives in Italy over their thirty years of history. In addition to organizing political and trade union representation, the social cooperation movement has felt the need to develop a system...