The ILO’s recognition of the social and solidarity economy (SSE), with an internationally accepted definition, pointed out its important role in achieving sustainable development goals, which aim at fostering inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all, and reducing inequalities. This article stresses the essential role of cooperatives in achieving the objectives of sustainable development and decent work. It clarifies the relationships among the social and solidarity economy, corporate social responsibility, and responsible business conduct. It shows why the SSE, which consists of value- and principle-driven/based units, is particularly relevant to improving accountability in business and society. This article especially focuses on the contribution of SSE businesses to decent work using examples from different ILO reports in a qualitative and thematic approach. It proposes some critical thoughts on the cooperative model and recommendations for reinforcing commitments to the achievement of sustainable development goals.

In this paper, we analyse the emergence and development of social enterprise in South Korea. Our purpose is to show how different broad, consensual and successive conceptions of social enterprise—the so-called meta-models—have generated a dynamic and complex environment which includes a variety of models of social enterprise. Based on multiple data sources, including interviews, documents, statistics and field research, we illustrate the diversity of Korean social enterprise models by using the EMES ideal-type as a conceptual framework that leads us to analyse the social, economic and governance dimensions of each type of social enterprise. This research suggests that the social enterprise phenomenon should not be limited to its expressed contents or to an excessively strict legal or economic definition. It eventually contributes to advancing our understanding on social enterprise by showing that the definitions and concepts of social enterprise can be diverse across different social, economic and political contexts. For this reason, building a universal typology that can embrace social enterprises in different national contexts is by far a challenging task.

This study applies a hierarchical clustering approach to identify social enterprise models that have appeared in a setting of public sector-led incubation. Within such a context, a high degree of conformity ought to be apparent due to the coercive isomorphic pressures associated with public sector patronage. We nominate South Korea for our analysis, given that the rising number of social enterprises in the country is closely related to a regulatory intervention. Based on an analysis of 468 social enterprises, we find, contrary to expectations, that distinct clusters of government-certified social enterprises have emerged, namely social utility niche, job outsourcing, market opportunity, and integrated balanced models. We typologize these models according to their strategic orientation, mission focus, and institutional alignment. In doing so, we contribute to social enterprise research by illustrating how organizational pluralism may manifest when the growth of a population of social enterprises is directly linked to public sector intervention and regulation.

This article addresses the issue of the contribution of SSE to the SDGs through a comparative analysis conducted in two countries: France and South Korea. The theoretical perspective adopted is that of public action renewal through a co-production process and the method uses a multidimensional analysis of the institutionalisation of SSE in both surveyed countries. Our results show that, far from a path dependency, there is a convergence process based on an increasing heterogeneity of the SSE dynamics in each of the national contexts. They also reveal that the institutionalisation of SSE reflects two conceptions of social innovation that each characterise the renewal of public action. In Korea, this conception is based on the production of goods and services with a social purpose by private actors, and in France, on co-construction processes that have been widely experimented with by SSE actors but remain unfinished. The result is an original and specific contribution in both countries to the SDGs, although this contribution is not fully explicit and recognised, both in terms of its results and process. This invisibilisation weakens the transformative potential of SSE in its contribution to sustainable development.

La Corée du Sud est un cas particulièrement intéressant pour qui s’intéresse à l’économie sociale : on y assiste, depuis une quinzaine d’années, à l’émergence d’un ensemble de concepts et de dispositifs juridiques successifs qui traduisent un intérêt pour l’entreprise sociale, les coopératives et, plus récemment, l’idée d’économie sociale dans une société faisant face à de nouveaux défis socioéconomiques et à un environnement politique renouvelé par l’entrée dans la démocratie à la fin des années 80. Le présent article revient en détail sur ce processus, montrant notamment qu’en même temps qu’ils gagnent en reconnaissance et en visibilité, ces différents concepts n’échappent pas au risque de récupération et de déformation. South Korea is a particularly interesting case for those interested in the social economy. Over the past fifteen years, a series of concepts and legal measures have emerged that reflect an interest in social enterprises, cooperatives, and more recently, the idea of the social economy in a society facing new social and economic challenges and a new political context since the start of democratization in the late 1980s. This article examines this process in detail and shows that while these various concepts have become more visible and widely known, they run the risk of being hijacked and distorted. Corea del Sur es un caso particularmente interesante para quien se interesa en la economía social. De hecho, en los últimos quince años, ha surgido un conjunto de conceptos y de instrumentos jurídicos sucesivos qué refleja un interés por la empresa social y las cooperativas. Más recientemente, ha aparecido el concepto de economía social en una sociedad haciendo frente a los nuevos retos socio-económicos en un retorno político renovado con la llegada de la democracia a finales de la década 1980. El presente artículo analiza en detalle este proceso, mostrando en particular que al mismo tiempo que estos diferentes conceptos están ganando en reconocimiento y en visibilidad, ellos no escapan al riesgo de recuperación y de deformación.