Korean Social Enterprises Research Articles

Organizational Capacity, Community Asset Mobilization, and Performance of Korean Social Enterprises

This paper develops an integrative analysis framework for assessing the performance of social enterprises in Korea in the context of combined organizational and environmental factors that provide positive feedback. We surveyed 120 social enterprises in Korea and analyzed the relationships between organizational capacity, community asset mobilization, and performance of those social enterprises. The analysis showed that organizational capacity and community asset mobilization influenced performance in different ways. In addition, management capacity emerged as the most important mediating variable of the organizational capacities, and the mobilization of the community assets of social enterprises contributed to improving their social performance. Finally, strategic leadership contributed to mobilizing the community assets of social enterprises. However, community asset mobilization had negative effects on economic performance. Important lessons for policy makers and future research directions are drawn from these results.

The developmental state and social enterprise in South Korea

Purpose– This paper aims to examine the distinctiveness of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalism perspective. From this perspective, the author focuses on the proactive roles played by the government in the process of emergence and formulation of social enterprises in South Korea. The author roots this paper in the concept of the developmental state and examines how this concept applies to newly emerging social enterprises in South Korea.Design/methodology/approach– This paper first introduces the process of South Korean social enterprises’ emergence as an independent phenomenon. The author explains the process with a link to governmental actions, such as the introduction of public programs and government acts. Second, this paper introduces the concept of developmental state which captures the proactive role of the state in social, economic and political development in South Korea. Third, this paper applies the institutional framework proposed by Kerlin (2013) to see how the South Korean social enterprise model can be located from a comparative perspective and how the South Korean model can contribute to the expansion of the existing framework.Findings– This paper finds that the state involvement in South Korea is a reflection of the historical path of the developmental state. The cross-comparison of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalist approach finds that the South Korean case may contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate by suggesting taking a Weberian ideal type of an interventionist state into account for an extension of the proposed framework. This paper also uncovered the strategic approach of the South Korean Government in utilizing this public policy tool by adopting and combining existing social enterprise models.Research limitations/implications– This paper demonstrates the state’s intents to mobilize economic and societal resources as public policy intervention tools, which can be understood from a developmental state context. This role would be distinct when compared to those in Europe and the USA. This paper has a limitation to restrict its analytical scope to formally recognized social enterprises because it focuses on the role of the state in utilizing social enterprises for public policy agenda: social development and social welfare provision.Practical implications– As a practical implication, this study might provide an insightful framework for South Korean public policy makers, outlining the contributions and limitations of state-led public policies associated with social enterprises. As seen in the historical path of governmental interventions, governmental public policies do not necessarily guarantee their sustainable community impacts without the consideration of private or nonprofit actors’ spontaneous involvements. The flip side of state-led interventions requires policy makers to become more cautious, as they address social problems with public policy intents.Originality/value– The majority of current studies on social enterprises in South Korea mainly focus on reporting the quantitative increase in the number of registered social enterprises. Beyond this quantitative description of its achievement, this paper also provides a historical narration and philosophical background of this phenomenon. Additionally, it shows how this artificial government intervention in social enterprises could be accepted from a historical perspective and brought remarkable responses from the private and civil society sectors in South Korea.

How Partnerships Affect the Social Performance of Korean Social Enterprises

Social enterprises receive a lot of attention, because of their ability to balance social service-enhancing and profit-making activities. They can survive and have financial sustainability in markets and provide social services that would otherwise not be provided due to the failure of private or government provision. In the Korean context, social enterprises have another function – to provide jobs and increase employment rates in times of low economic growth and growing inequality. Given this situation, it is useful for researchers to investigate what types of partners provide particular sorts of resources to social enterprises and what types of resources from such partners may have mediating effects on the relationship between partnerships and the social performance of social enterprises. First, this research shows that all partners of social enterprises provide financial support and public and social partners provide marketing support, while private partners do not provide marketing support. However, no partners provide any managerial support. Second, public and social partners are helpful for the social performance of social enterprises but their financial support influences the social performance of social enterprises negatively. Private partners and their financial support also influence the social performance of social enterprises negatively.

Governance in South Korean social enterprises

Purpose – The aim of the present study is to identify the prevalent model of social enterprise governance in South Korea by empirically testing five conceptual models. Theoretical and empirical research on the governance of social enterprises have grown considerably in the past decade, centred primarily on the UK, Europe and the USA. Whilst some articles have discussed the role and growth of social enterprises in Asia, the empirical evidence remains scant, particularly in relation to empirical studies of social enterprise governance in South Korea. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing upon established literature on social enterprise governance, we empirically tested five conceptual models on a sample of 69 South Korean social enterprises collected through an online survey to identify the prevalent model of governance. Such models were found unable to fully explain governance processes observed. Thus, the authors used an innovative statistical technique, latent class analysis, which identifies clusters of associations between key governance variables. Findings – This exercise revealed two opposite models, centralising and interdependent. The latter represent an interesting shift towards widening forms of participation in governance processes in South Korea. Research limitations/implications – The sample is small and only limited to some social enterprise types. More research needs to be done on larger samples including the growing South Korean co-operative sector. Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first published data available on the governance of South Korean social enterprises and the analysis used to identify governance models (i.e. latent class analysis) is novel.

AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE AND POLICY IMPLICATION FOR SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

This study looked at the current status of Korean social enterprises and their problems and suggested governmental policy implications for enhancing the competitiveness of social enterprises. As the study methods, the current status of social enterprises was analyzed and performance of social enterprise support was examined and then policy implications for promoting the social enterprises were analyzed. First, the direction of governmental policy regarding the promotion of social enterprise should be converted into the ecosystem oriented or each business oriented getting out of the labor cost oriented and should emphasize on the follow up management and evaluation. Second, the certification program that bothers the expansion of social enterprises should be changed. That is, the government should change a policy into the direction that leaves the activities of social enterprise to the market function while easing the criteria of certification. Only by this, can more activities and job creation effects of social enterprise be expected. Third, the directions of governmental policies related to social entrepreneur fostering should be corrected and complemented. To resolve this so called problem, a standard model including the policy of standardized programs and contents for each business, type and local autonomous entity needs to be suggested. The educational programs and contents composed of such a standard model can enhance the professionalism and efficiency in social entrepreneur fostering. Finally the concept of social economy is needed to be more wide spread. That is, as a base of social enterprise activity, systematic and professional educational programs through university or graduate school are required. In Korea, for social enterprise to develop, excessive governmental involvement in the market should decrease. That is, the certification requirement for social enterprise should be eased much and a direct support for social enterprise should be converted into an indirect support method, which enables more activities of social enterprise and higher job creation effect. In the long term, social entrepreneurs should be fostered to enhance professionalism and efficiency so that social enterprise can have competitiveness.

Investigating the Quality of Work in Korean Social Enterprises - An application of fuzzy-set ideal type approach

최근 사회적기업이 급속도로 성장하고 있는 가운데 일각의 지적처럼 ‘저임금 단기 일자리’로 전락된다면 제도적 정당성을 획득하기 어려울 수 있다. 사회적기업의 일자리 질은 사회적기업의 지속가능성을 높여주는 핵심적 요소이므로 현재 사회적기업이 고용된 근로자들에 대해 고용 안정성 및 사회적 평균 수준의 임금을 보장하고 있는가를 검토해보고, 앞으로 사회적기업의 일자리 질을 향상시키기 위해 보완되어야 할 부분은 무엇인지 구체적인 논의가 필요하다. 이에 본 연구는 국제노동기구의 ‘괜찮은 일자리’ 개념을 바탕으로, 퍼지셋 이상형분석(ideal-type approach)을 활용하여 적절한 소득, 적절한 노동시간, 고용보장, 양성평등 그리고 사회보장 측면에서 사회적기업의 일자리 질을 분석한 결과, 적절한 노동시간 측면과 양성평등 측면은 다소 괜찮은 것으로 분석되었으나 소득수준, 고용보장 및 사회보장 측면은 일자리 질이 다소 괜찮지 않은 것으로 분석되어 이는 앞으로 우리나라 사회적기업 및 정부가 근로자들을 위해 중점적으로 보완시켜야 할 부분임을 확인하였다.

Can social enterprise stand for persons with disabilities? The case of South Korean social enterprises, 2007–2008

This article explores whether social enterprise can be an alternative for work integration of the disabled. Although persons with disabilities have undergone more severe exclusion than have other socially disadvantaged groups in the labour market, social enterprises selected the disabled as one of their main target groups, helping enact disability-centered public policy. However, unlike the high expectation social enterprise gained during its formation, less attention has been paid to the actual content and goal of social enterprise. This analysis of 154 Korean social enterprises shows that the disabled are the most represented among socially disadvantaged groups in social enterprises. At the same time, disability-centered social enterprises focus considerably on creating jobs for the disabled rather than on providing social services for them. The findings are discussed in relation to some policy implications and issues facing social enterprises.