The social Economy: analysis of the economic and financial profitability of integration enterprises and special employment centers

Abstract

If we carried out a number of surveys among the Spanish population about the meaning of the concept of ‘social economy’, or we asked about what the concept stands for, it would be considered as an allien term for most of them, as well as that of the real meaning of ‘economy’. The definition of ‘economy’ provided by dictionaries comes in these terms: ‘Economy is the social science that deals with the satisfaction of human needs departing from scarce resources’. We tend to consider it as a exact or formal science, closer to maths, since it contains a big number of operations and equations to deal with; consequently it sounds rather strange the fact that its basic goal be that of human needs satisfaction. The goal of this Project is to describe the features and the situation of those organisations that can be considered as ‘social enterprises’ in the Spanish Nation. Further, an analysis of the financial and economical profitability of the most relevant groups of enterprises in the Spanish Social Economy, such as the Employment Specialised Center (SEC) and Insertion Enterprises (IE) will follow, as well as a comparative analysis of the results of our research.