Social Enterprises and Benefit Corporations in South Korea

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines the current status, system, and future pathway of Korea’s social economy including Benefit Corporations. In Korea, it was only after 2000 that the social economy being discussed today first appeared. Since then, many central ministries have fostered social economy organizations as an alternative to solving specific social problems in their respective areas. To this end, the government has provided various support programs directly and indirectly to these social economy organizations to vitalize the social economy. In selecting the targets of the support, individual central ministries have used their own accreditation standards to differentiate social economy organizations from other general enterprises rather than based on general standards utilized overseas such as certified B corps. It could be a reason that B corps is still an accreditation system used only by a small number of companies in Korea. Even the term itself has not been translated into Korean, and there is no expansive discussion about it either. If the development direction of social economy over the past 20 years does not change significantly, the B corporation is unlikely to be used more actively even if social economy is further revitalized.