In recent years, social and solidarity economy (SSE) has gained in importance, parallel to the rise of other related movements such as social entrepreneurship or more generally, corporate social responsibility (Schrempf, 2012; Smith, Gonin, & Besharov, 2013). Various countries have developed specific legislation and created task forces or committees on the issue (see Borzaga & Defourny, 2001). Local umbrella organizations have been created or strengthened to better promote these types of socio-economic actors. Finally, various research programs and research centers have been initiated to better understand and support these movements.
Despite the increasing awareness, interest, and promotion programs, we still lack a clear conceptualization of the various streams and their respective definitions, scopes, and boundaries. ‘Social’ is often defined in a very generic way to include some contribution to societal welfare or to ‘the community’ – without further detail or operationalization. As for the economic aspect, some authors suggest that any organization is ‘economic’ as soon as it buys and sells some product within its operations, even if it this product is as simple as a pen and paper to take notes (see Rist, 1998). Others relate ‘economic’ to ‘profit-generation’. As an intermediary position, a third group of scholars speaks of limited profit or simply suggests that an organization must aim at trading some goods and service to be ‘economic’.
