Social Entrepreneurship in

Finland

Saila Tykkyläinen

LUT School of Business and Management

2.11.2015 | Aalto

Background and context

Development path

− Roots in III sector service provision, co-operative movement, entrepreneurship as an alternative for civil society activities or employment

− Development projects with ESR and ERDF funding

− New, poorly known and contested concept Saila

Tykkylä

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Recent reviews and studies- ETLA: Esiselvitys yhteiskunnallisesta yrittämisestä, 2015. - LUT: Yhteiskunnallinen yrittäjyys innovatiivisessa arvonluonnissa, 2015. - Russell, Pättiniemi and Koivuneva, 2014: A map of social enteprises and their ecosystems is Europe. A Country report on Finland. European commission- Kostilainen and Tykkyläinen, 2013: TheCharacteristics of Finnish Social Enteprises.- Karjalainen ja Syrjänen, 2009: Onko Suomessa yhteiskunnallisia yrityksiä?

Ecosystem

Ecosystem is fragile and patchy

− Policy actions: Law on work integration social enterprises (2003),

recommendations by MEE’s working group on SE (2010-2011)

− Marketing and awareness rising: Social Enteprise Mark (2011)

− Community building and interest representation: SYY ry (2009), Arvo-

liitto ry (2014)

− Finance: No specialized sources of funding. Sitra’s project on impact

investment (2014-2016), crowdfunding platforms and instruments

− Research and education: Coordinated by Finsern. Some actors in the field

Aalto, LUT, Diaconia University of Applied Sciences,

− Training and consultation: Kasvuhuone, KSL - opintokeskus

Saila

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Finnish social enterprisesCriteria applied by SEM and Arvo-liitto

- Operates in markets, takes financial risks

- Primary purpose is to produce common good

- Major part of profits is used to promote the company’s social aim

- Transparency and openness of the business

The difficulty of counting…

- ETLA (2015): more than 19 000 SEs which have about 126 000 employees (registered associations, n=3000 in Russell et al., not included)

- Russell et al. (2014): about 5 000 SEs (privately owned SMEs not included)

- Karjalainen ja Syrjänen (2009): about 12 000 SEs (only SMEs included)

Variety regarding social causes, ownership structures, industries, organizational forms, sizes and life spans is great (Etla, 2015; Kostilainen ja Tykkyläinen, 2013).

Some Finnish peculiarities

- Social mission can be pursued with profit distribution

- More strongly associated with operational logics and terms of business sector than with those of community economy

- Some (recognized) SEs are owned by public sector actors

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Social-impact enterprise: Mifuko Ltd.

Social-profit enterprise: Diacor Ltd.

Social-process enterprise: Diadome Ltd.

Social-output enterprise: Viittakivi Ltd.

Let’s stay in touch, saila.tykkylainen@lut.fi

presentation available in www.slideshare.org

THANK YOU! KIITOS!

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