Classifying Social Enterprises Through Theoretical Typologies to Understand Social Innovation

Abstract

In the latter, there has been an increasing importance attributed to the measurement of social value and social impact that various organizations create. The demand to measure this value comes from all sides: funders who want to direct their money to the most effective projects, policy makers and government officials must be accountable for their spending decisions, and social organizations need to demonstrate their impact to financiers, partners and beneficiaries. This article intends to classify social companies through theoretical types and analyze their characteristics to understand social innovation. The first stage of the project was the elaboration of the theoretical framework on the themes of social enterprise, typology of social enterprises, social business model and social innovation. The research instrument was an interview guide, and the next step was to select three social companies of different types to carry out the empirical research. These typologies were tested in three social companies in the empirical research and the effectiveness of the typologies was proven.