The Salience of Social Enterprise: a ‘Fictional’, Functional Tale of Three Sectors Cooperation

Built on a commercial structure, a social enterprise has its primary goal to achieve certain social objectives, by which attempts to make a strong societal, and environmental impact. In exploring its role in a VUCA (volatile-uncertain-complex-ambiguous) world, we argue that such dynamic, adaptable, structures fostering social innovation, and entrepreneurship, are set to thrive as pillars of socio-economic stability in the current climate of rapid business change. We posit that social entrepreneurship (and intrapreneurship) skills such as creative bricolage¹ represent a much-needed addition to the business toolkit competences. The aim of this paper is to provide a counterpoint to a world marred by overconsumption, where instant gratification and short-term profits, coupled with human impact to global climate add to market volatility and uncertainty. Our research focuses on a sustainable business model that blends entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, with the full, balanced, use of financial, social, and human capitals, while blending innovative accounting models to create a new paradigm of long-term economic stability. This all-inclusive business model has the ability to leverages a three-sector collaboration between public, private, and voluntary, centered on a different kind of profit-making organizations such as social enterprises, benefit corporations, or cooperatives, towards a more sustainable business and economic future.