In the last two decades, several innovative legal frameworks for social entrepreneurship were developed across Europe. The differential success of these innovations raise certain questions. Is the intrinsic design of these legal frameworks optimal for social enterprises? Secondly, is the...

Who counts in co-operatives, and how? In this paper empirical results are presented from recent quantitative and qualitative studies on Belgian co-operatives in which questions about who counts in co-operatives and how were treated (Develtere, Meireman & Raymaekers, 2005; Dujardin, Mertens & Van...

Co-operatives are jointly owned and democratically controlled organizations, designed to meet the socio-economic needs of their members. Originated in the mid 19th century, co-operatives were set up to improve the living conditions of their members, contributing to the development of the welfare...

The sector of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) has grown considerably all across Europe during the last few decades. While WISEs focusing at sheltered employment for people with disabilities exist for a long time already, many governments embraced WISEs as an active labour market...

Purpose – The sector of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) has grown considerably all across Europe during the last few decades. Unfortunately, many governments do not have a clear sight on the profile of WISEs they are supporting. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed...

This paper aims to understand the society-state relationship in China, by exploring this dynamics with other types of organizations, i.e. civil society organizations with economic objectives. The dynamics of co-operatives can influence and interact with civil society dynamics. In this sense,...

We see that Belgian industrial dairy production before World War II lagged the developments of other countries in the same region and of the same size such as Denmark and The Netherlands. The share of home production remained remarkably high, while within the industrial segment the number of...

This paper aims to fill the academic gaps in the study of the new co-operative movement in China and its innovative mechanisms, and to get a more comprehensive idea of new co-operatives operating as home-grown Chinese social enterprises, by exploring the dynamic process of co-operative practice...