A different kind of social enterprise: social cooperatives and the development of civic capital in Italy

Vanna A. Gonzales

Community Development, 2010, vol. 41, issue 1, 50-75

Abstract: Viewed predominantly as service-based institutions, the contribution of social enterprises to civil society has not received much attention. In the discussion that follows, I draw from a variety of primary sources, including an in person survey of presidents and directors of 140 Italian social cooperatives, as well as in-depth interviews with leaders of the Italian Cooperative Movement, to investigate the capacity of social cooperatives to generate collective benefits for Italian civil society. Combining a social economy framework with emerging conceptual work on civic capital, I analyze the relationship between this unique form of social enterprise and two key challenges to community development in Italy: parochialism and clientelism. By combining systematic empirical research of Italian social cooperatives, as a novel though increasingly important form of social enterprise in Europe, with a conceptual framework which focuses on the solidaristic aspects of these organizations, for which there is very little published research in English, I hope to broaden our understanding of how third sector organizations are able to cope with challenges endemic to community development in contexts that extend well beyond Italy.

Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15575330903359598 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:comdev:v:41:y:2010:i:1:p:50-75

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCOD20

DOI: 10.1080/15575330903359598

Access Statistics for this article

Community Development is currently edited by John Green, Rhonda Phillips and Anne Heinze Silvis

More articles in Community Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().