Innovation in the Partnership between Businesses and NGOs or Social Enterprises

Abstract

It is evident, also in light of the recent economic and financial crisis, that the general interest in the whole must be pursued not only by public institutions and nonprofit organizations or social enterprises but by businesses as well. It is therefore clear why the need to implement social responsibility strategies and put them into management practices is becoming more and more important at every level. This means that not only doing business politics and strategies have to be redefined but also the roles and functions that the different institutions play in order for them to contribute autonomously and in line with the logic of business subsidiarity to the progressive achievement of the economic and social objectives of modern society.Dealing with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) means to consider not only the historical development of the relationship between the company and its contest, but also the relationships between it and NGOs and social enterprises.The strategic dimension of CSR has to be seen in a long term period: environment, for example, is a constituent part for the business itself and for its operations. By taking into account the presence of the environment as one of its stakeholders, the business is thereby able to better match its desires and goals with the social context and likewise analyzes the results obtained.In this circular relationship, successful businesses are therefore those able to operate according to proactive logic in relation to their surrounding communities.This research focuses on how this proactive logic extends in business relations towards nonprofit organizations and social enterprises. The paper studies these relationships trough:1. analysis of historic evolution of relationship between firms, nonprofit organizations and social enterprises in Italy;2. observation of the present relations between for profit and nonprofit world, the relationships with the environment and the comparison with other European countries;3. analysis of the present relations between profit and nonprofit world in Italy and statistical and econometric analysis of a sample of social enterprises that have partnerships with firms, and of a sample of businesses that have some type of relationships with nonprofit world;4. definition, trough case study, of the most important variables with particular attention to the communication instruments addressed to the stakeholders and to the social innovation;5. definition of guide lines for the improvement of relationships between businesses, nonprofit organizations and social enterprises with particular attention to process transparency, communication and social innovation6. definition of the most important practices of innovative partnerships between business and social enterprises