As a unique case in Asia, South Korea has developed for about 15 years a complex eco-system for encouraging the promotion of various forms of social enterprises, i.e. enterprises pursuing a social aim and/or operating under a democratic governance. This paper analyses the institutional trajectory of social enterprise in Korea and its close relation with the concept of social economy. A socio-economic analysis of this trajectory reveals that it is strongly driven by successive consensus towards socially useful organisational forms that remain first relatively unknown and local, and then tend to attract the attention of a growing number of stakeholders, including central and local governments, to eventually generate specific public schemes and laws. Through this analysis, one can understand how far an economic concept like social enterprise is the result of a social construct that depends on the involvement of the public side and the civil society and social movement. It also stresses how important is the decisive role played by relatively minor actors to generate a consensus between different stakeholders and disseminate thus social innovation to reshape public action and public/private forms of partnerships.

中文翻译：

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Une analyze social-économique de la trajectoire Institutionnelle de l'entreprise sociale : le cas de la Corée du Sud

作为亚洲的一个独特案例，韩国已经发展了大约 15 年的复杂生态系统，以鼓励促进各种形式的社会企业，即追求社会目标和/或在民主治理下运营的企业。本文分析了韩国社会企业的制度轨迹及其与社会经济概念的密切关系。对这一轨迹的社会经济分析表明，它受到对社会有用的组织形式的连续共识的强烈推动，这些组织形式首先仍然相对未知和本地化，然后往往会吸引越来越多的利益相关者的关注，包括中央和地方政府，最终产生具体的公共计划和法律。通过这个分析，人们可以理解，像社会企业这样的经济概念在多大程度上是社会建构的结果，这种社会建构取决于公共方面、公民社会和社会运动的参与。它还强调了相对较小的行为者在不同利益相关者之间形成共识并传播社会创新以重塑公共行动和公共/私人伙伴关系形式所起的决定性作用的重要性。