Social Enterprise: A Typology of the Field Contextualized in Latin America
By Sutia Kim Alter (09/03, En) See also Microenterprise
This monograph is intended to break down the traditional boundaries between the public and the private sector and between the for-profit and nonprofit institutional arrangements that color our view of development. It explores the dynamics of an entirely new phenomenon, the social enterprise, and its role in the Latin American region. Through an analysis of the Inter-American Development Bank?s experience over the past 25 years with its Social Entrepreneurship Program the publication distills the concepts, trends, and best practices in social enterprise explor how institutions have combined their social values and goals with commercial business practices in a plethora of social projects developing ownership models, income and capitalization strategies and unique management and service systems designed to maximize social value. Following a theory-from-practice approach linked to larger bodies of existing research the publication proposes a conceptual framework for social enterprises supported by case studies introducing an illustrative typology with supporting models that will hopefully lead to a new burst of creativity and investment in the field of social enterprise.
This working paper is being published with the sole objective of contributing to the debate on a topic of importance to the region, and to elicit comments and suggestions from interested parties. This paper has not gone through the Department?s peer review process or undergone consideration by the SDS Management Team. As such, it does not reflect the official position of the Inter-American Development Bank.
Last updated: 05/08/07
