MULTI-CRITERIA APPROACH IN EVALUATING CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF SOCIALLY-EXCLUDED GROUPS

Marija Džunić,Jelena Stanković,Vesna Janković-Milić

doi:10.3846/20294913.2017.1347906

Marija Džunić, Jelena Stanković + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3846/20294913.2017.1347906

Copy DOI

Abstract

The paper explores the potential impact of social enterprises on social exclusion. In particular, the role of social enterprises in labour market integration of socially excluded individuals is analysed within the existing theoretical and policy discourses of exclusion. Taking into account the difficulties in measuring the social impact of social enterprises, our study contributes to the quantitative literature on the performance of social enterprises, taking the number of integrated people as a measure of the impact on social exclusion. The research is based on data on the employment of marginalized groups, derived from a unique dataset collected by a recently conducted survey of social enterprises in Serbia. The original methodological framework combines statistical methods and multi-criteria decision making model, in order to evaluate the contribution of different types of enterprises to the employment of excluded individuals. Weights determination for the MCDM model is performed using entropy while TOPSIS method is applied for the ranking of the types of social enterprises according to the employment of socially excluded categories. The results indicate that enterprises for employment of persons with disabilities, citizens’ associations and cooperatives in Serbia contribute the most in integrating the socially excluded.

Highlights

The concept of social entrepreneurship has received an increasing interest both in theory and policy, since it first appeared at the late XX century (Defourny, Nyssens 2010)
The role of social enterprises in work integration of disadvantaged groups is examined in the context of the social integrationist discourse in social exclusion theory, which suggests that labour market participation and paid employment represent the main instrument for fighting exclusion
Our research emphasizes that development of work integration social enterprises could be an efficient tool for fighting social exclusion

Summary

Introduction

The concept of social entrepreneurship has received an increasing interest both in theory and policy, since it first appeared at the late XX century (Defourny, Nyssens 2010). Most of its prominence originates from the engagement of social enterprises in resolving the problems of unemployment, poverty and social marginalization, thereby creating social value (Alvord et al 2004; Mair, Marti 2006). For this reason, social enterprises have been given a label of innovative and creative solution to a number of social problems, filling the gap left by inefficient state policies (Nicholls 2006). Džunić et al Multi-criteria approach in evaluating contribution of social entrepreneurship

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion