Social Enterprise in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The motive for the selection of the topic of a scientific article is an increasing need for finding alternatives to tackle social exclusion and unemployment of specific target groups. The EU Commission in its Recommendation on the active inclusion of people excluded from the labor market suggests the issue of tackling social exclusion and poverty more effective application of social innovation and exploit the full potential of the social economy. Scientific aim of the paper is to highlight the new phenomenon of social entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic on the basis of a questionnaire survey done by mutual comparison of selected social enterprises in the Czech Republic, through multi-criteria decision-making methods to determine the order of social enterprises surveyed by individual selected criteria. The main research question is formulated to identify the main barriers to the creation and development of social enterprises in the Czech Republic. In the theoretical part of the paper used content analysis and descriptive method. Methods of content analysis of relevant research, scientific studies and literature and subsequent synthesis are used for finding the essential characteristics of the social economy and social enterprise and their relationships. Comparison method is analyzed in terms of socially functioning business environment in the Czech Republic. Description of the Czech social business environment is based on the outcomes of a survey on the issue of funding, organizational structure, goals of social entrepreneurship and more. The purpose of the statistical methods of the survey was to implement the collection of information from existing social enterprises in the Czech Republic. It was also used in information processing method and data analysis method of induction – is based on examining the individual phenomenon or event pursuant to which the general conclusions. Although historically, economically and socially, the Czech Republic close to the intellectual values of social entrepreneurship, and yet there is no explicit system of social entrepreneurship. There is a lack of social enterprise network infrastructure, legislative definition of the origin and functioning of social enterprises, and effective long-term financing instruments, total comprehensive concept of social entrepreneurship.