engleski

Social Entrepreneurship: Perspective of Croatia

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the perspective of social entrepreneurship in the Republic of Croatia. Rather than maximizing profits, social enterprises try to serve community’s interest through fulfilling certain social, cultural or environmental objectives. Moreover, such enterprises often tend to employ marginalized members of the society, usually socially excluded persons, and thus contribute to employment, reduction of inequalities and social cohesion. Although usually related to non-governmental (non-profit) organizations and citizen groups, as well as public enterprises, there is a positive trend in the number of socially responsible private profit-making corporations that combine traditional profit orientation with a desire to partly become social enterprises through their innovative social impacts on the community. Present economic situation and the financial capacity of the state and local levels fail to provide sufficient funds to meet all social needs, and hence, due to their resources, profit-making private corporations could be considered drivers of change of economic and social activity. Increased focus on social entrepreneurship, especially from policy makers as a reaction to continuously growing social initiative, resulted in several strategic documents primarily aimed at creating a favourable climate for social enterprises and ensuring sustainable social entrepreneurship development. After an overview of the present social entrepreneurship situation in Croatia, authors tend to provide an insight into future perspectives through review of the key elements of Draft Strategy for the Development of social entrepreneurship in the Republic of Croatia for the period from 2014 to 2020. The aim of the Strategy is to provide not only financial support but also to design the instruments for the promotion of social entrepreneurship and education at all levels in order to recognize the importance of social entrepreneurship as the essential component of economic development. The main part of the Strategy relates to the measures and activities with defined performance indicators and explained activities planned for monitoring its successful implementation. Finally, a case of contemporary socially responsible corporation is provided.

social entrepreneurship; social enterprise; CSR; social responsibility index; new perspectives

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