Credit unions are social economy entities that have an important contribution to preventing financial and social exclusion in Romania. Historically, we can speak about credit unions in Romania from XVIII century in Transylvania, until present. These social economy entities have been a...

Job creation by cooperatives and other social economy organizations requires an open spirit towards new forms of co-operatives, the doctrine call hybrids. In Portugal, public interest cooperatives is since 1984 a hybrid form made possible by the constitutional statement that a cooperative sector...

This article is a revised and updated version of an earlier publication2. It begins by looking at the issue of the definition of the third sector arguing in favour of a coming together of the concepts of civil society and social economy - what they share as core values outweighing their...