Reconfiguring the Social and Solidarity Economy in a Danish/Nordic Welfare Context

Abstract

This chapter highlights the difference between adopting a social economy and a solidarity economy approach to social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. It explains the significant sharing and differences of social and solidarity economy in a Danish and Nordic context. The chapter provides two social- and solidarity-oriented Danish case studies, both delivering many different services and products for vulnerable and ordinary citizens, for local community and for national/international users. When looking at definitions and understandings of the social and solidarity economy, one issue stands out as particularly significant: that of how research links the organizational analysis of particular social enterprises to societal dimensions at the macro-level. In the social economy tradition, social enterprise is a matter of organizational criteria and specificities. Following M. Granovetter, the solidarity economy analysis of social enterprise does not stop by only analyzing the specific organizational capacities and characteristics of a certain social enterprise, but insists on understanding how it is embedded in that larger societal framework.