Social entrepreneurship and economy organisations: as a contested concept of welfare, democracy, learning and advocacy

Departing from a brief state of the art on social entrepreneurship in Denmark sketching out how social entrepreneurship and social innovation is introduced referring to partly a more classical approach to entrepreneurship and innovation and partly referring to a specific Danish tradition for social development and local participation in welfare production this presentation draws upon a number of case studies on young social economy organizations. These organizations seek to gain ground as social enterprises delivering social services in partnerships with the civic society and sometimes also a number of public bodies. Hereby they embody the new arenas of social entrepreneurship that has entered the Danish policy and practical arena in the forms of hybrid types of social service provision in the area of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. Based on these case studies it is suggested that the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship and social economy organizations is a contested concept that caters to different strategies for welfare, democracy, learning and advocacy.