Social Enterprise in Portugal: Concepts, Contexts and Models

Abstract

There is no specific legal form or statute for social enterprises in Portugal. Research on social enterprise is scarce and focused on specific types of organisations and, in the absence of a common definition, the concept is understood in various ways. This chapter provides an overall view of social enterprise in Portugal drawn from the research carried on in the scope of the “TIMES - Institutional Trajectories and Social Enterprise Models in Portugal” project. The chapter is organised in two parts. First, we explore the concepts and context related to social enterprise in Portugal; through a literature review and policy analysis, we describe how the concept of social enterprise and other relevant concepts, such as social economy and social innovation, are being treated in research and in the political debate, and how this has been translated into various government programmes and measures. In the second major section, based on a literature review and on interviews with key stakeholders, we identify and describe five models of de facto social enterprise in Portugal. In line with the framework developed by Defourny and Nyssens (2017), we privilege organisational forms and statutes and institutional trajectory.