DEFINITIONS AND POTENTIALS OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN CROATIA IN COMPARATIVE CONTEXT

Social entrepreneurship and social economy are constantly growing on global scale in the last three decades in developed countries and in developing countries as well. Social entrepreneurship is an umbrella term for a wide range of innovative and dynamic international practices and discourses in social and environmental area. For some, the paradigm of social entrepreneurship is panacea solving the problem of market failure, while for others it means the further expansion and domination of business models in all aspects of modern life. The ability to operate social enterprises exists in many sectors, such as health, social and educational services, care for children and elderly, services related to leisure time, transport, production and sale of food and the environment protection. The importance of the social economy and entrepreneurship varies from country to country. Proportion of labor active population, which is involved in the field of social entrepreneurship, is much higher in developed countries than in transition and developing countries. In Europe social entrepreneurship is in the process of expansion, it is creating large number of jobs and opens up opportunities for economic and social development; indicator for the stated is the figure of 9 million people employed in the field of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship has not got the right opportunity in Croatia yet, there are some examples of good practice and attempts of civil society organizations towards the development of social entrepreneurship in cooperation with legislator and other relevant stakeholders. But so far, there are no concrete results and impacts of conducted National Strategy for creating an enabling environment for development of civil society, which is the first national document to mention social entrepreneurship.