Julia Kuznecova

This paper presents an overview of the two factors affecting the development of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in the Baltic Sea Region: human resources and the legal framework, making reference to the pertinent literature and an existing theory. The authors base their research on the survey conducted among the representatives of social enterprises across the seven Baltic Sea Region countries and focus group interviews. The results of the study show that there is a great disparity in the level of support offered to social entrepreneurs from the researched countries and that the same human resources theories could be applied to traditional and social enterprises. The study has also shown that social enterprise legislation is not the key factor in the development of a social economy in the researched countries, but further work on an adequate legislation is needed.

This paper presents an overview of support mechanisms for social entrepreneurship available in the seven Baltic Sea Region (BSR) countries with references to the pertinent literature. Its main aim is to evaluate the mechanisms of support provided by state and local authorities in terms of their influence on the development of the social entrepreneurship sector. The research is based on a survey conducted among representatives of social enterprises from the seven BSR countries and focus group interviews. The hypothesis assumes that that there is a great disparity in the level of support offered to social entrepreneurs in the researched countries; moreover, it is not the kind of support that is expected by entrepreneurs. The study revealed that the expected support mechanisms include: specialised institutions founded by the government, access to direct financial support, and infrastructure support aimed at increasing the capacity of social enterprises. The conclusion is that the existing support mechanisms require greater state and local involvement. Continued efforts are required to make them more accessible and better adjusted to the needs of social entrepreneurs in the researched countries.