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.