The Social Initiative Cooperative as a Social Enterprise model in Spain

Abstract

This article examines an organizational form in the field of the Spanish Social Economy that has been neglected in the academic literature: the social initiative cooperative. Through a descriptive analysis, the article offers a first approach to delimit, quantify and characterize social initiative cooperatives in Spain. The research is based on the data provided by the regional and provincial Cooperative Registration Offices. This information allowed us to analyze the context and process of institutionalization in which social cooperatives emerged in Spain, the regulatory framework that governs them in each autonomous community, the quantification of the number of social cooperatives in Spain and the evolution of the creation of these organizations, their geographical distribution, their size in terms of the initial number of members and initial share capital, and their sectoral distribution. In addition, it was also possible to carry out a comparative analysis between social cooperatives and the cooperative sector as a whole. The findings yield the following profile: in 2017 there were 647 active social cooperatives in Spain, located mainly in the Autonomous Communities of Andalusia, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Madrid. Spanish social cooperatives are small sized organizations, which tend to be created mainly with less than 5 members and an initial share capital of less than €5,000. Their activity is mainly located in the sectors of Education and Social and Health Services. Likewise, the profile obtained for the Spanish social cooperative fits perfectly into the European concept of social enterprise, as it combines an economic, social and democratic governance dimension. We contribute to the international literature on social enterprise, addressing recent calls to empirically contrast existing conceptualizations of social enterprise with the wide variety of models and experiences that exist in the world. Thus, the study is situated within an incipient line of work that is mapping and analyzing the emergence, development and characteristics of different typologies of social enterprise in different territories.