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The whole of Europe in the 1990s was dominated by one primary type of social enterprise called

a “work integration social enterprise” (WISE). This type of social enterprise focuses on integrating
disadvantaged groups of individuals into the labor market. These people are integrated into
employment and society via productive activity. Therefore, the concept of social entrepreneurship
in Europe is often associated only with initiatives linked to creating work opportunities for
disadvantaged groups of people (Defourny & Nyssens, 2012).

Other European countries began to instate new legal statuses of entrepreneurship. New
cooperative-type legal statuses also began to appear in countries such as France, Portugal, Spain
or Greece. On the other hand, countries like Belgium, Great Britain or Italy began to create more
open models of social entrepreneurship that were not based exclusively on the tradition of
cooperatives (Defourny & Nyssens 2012; European Commission, 2020). A law was passed in

Great Britain in 2004 that founded so-called public interest organizations. In Italy, Law no.
118/2005 on social enterprises was passed; the law defines other legal statuses or social
enterprises themselves by listing five conditions:

• formal establishment,

• private character of the legal person,

• non-division of profit,
• democratic proceedings, and

• volunteer work (České sociální podnikání, 2013).
In individual countries in Europe, social entrepreneurship has been defined over time in

legislation.

Social economics

Social enterprises are on the borderline of the private, public and third sector. In scientific
literature, this border is also known as social economics. Interest in this area and in the third
sector continues to grow (e.g. OECD & LEED, 2013, or Noya & Clarence, 2007). This growth is
primarily due to the effort to establish the importance of social economics in the local economy
and simultaneously to describe its other functions, including addressing the problems of the
welfare state. The primary goal of social economics can be considered the economic, social and

environmental advancement of the population via mutually beneficial activities (Hunčová, 2007).
Generally speaking, social economics supports the values and principles that focus on the needs
of people and their community and society (Dohnalová, 2006).

The term social economics can be used to label the part of the national economy that makes up
the so-called “third sector” (Noya & Clarence, 2007). This sector supplements two basic sectors
of the economy, i.e. the public and private sectors. Social economics thus partially includes the

market sector and also partially the civil sector (Dohnalová et al., 2016).
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