Social entrepreneurship: Challenges and opportunities
Konstantinos Geormas,
Ph.D. Sociology
26th Social firms Europe-CEFEC Conference
Corfu, 18-21/9/2013
The world we live in: Global
shift-a sinking old world
The socio-economic structure of our societies
undergoes a radical shift. What we call globalization seems to follow a path
beyond the will of those that promoted it in the first place. The Third World
is no longer such. China, India, Brazil and a number of other countries have
emerged as the new industrial centers of the world.
The consequences for Europe are of a historic
magnitude. 350 billion fall in EU-27 private investment in 2007-2011, larger
than any previous decline in absolute terms says McKinsey’s study.
So, after the
flight of industry now follows the flight of capital. Resources move out to the
new emerging economic powers, leaving behind states that struggle for
maintaining balanced budgets, tax levels, services, declining public infrastructures,
shrinking welfare states. The fear of deindustrialization has become the new talk
in Brussels, Washington, London, Paris, Rome, Athens.
If globalization marks the dawn of a new
beyond-the-west era, new developments are taking place on the ground. According to Berith
Wikström:
·
Approximately 70 per cent of young entrepreneurs want to start
businesses with others.
·
Cooperative entrepreneurship is growing markedly faster than joint stock
companies. It has doubled in size over the course of a decade in terms of
turnover and employment.
·
Cooperative company management boards are approximately three times more
gender-equal than joint stock companies.
