社會企業的起源，可追朔自 1970 年代，當時歐美各國受到全球化競爭壓力的影響，普遍面臨政府失靈的困境及社會資本不斷流失的問題。由於經濟成長衰退使得失業率不斷攀升並造成社會福利系統崩潰，政府收入明顯減少，公共支出卻因經濟危機而快速擴張，這些狀況為習慣上提供失業補助及退休金的歐洲國家帶來了相當大的衝擊 (Borzaga, C., & Santuari, A, 2003)。此外，由於歐洲各國政府無法回應失業者的需求，因此草根公民開始設立各種組織及第三部門(主要為合作社)，以扮演殘補性角色。基於此歷史背景，社會企業在歐洲興起主要基於兩個核心策略：其一為工作整合，以協助身心障礙及長期失業者之弱勢族群解決失業問題；其次則為提供健康與教育相關服務(Evers, 2001; Laville& Nyssens, 2001)。

The origin of  social enterprise could be traced back from the 1970s, when a lot of European and American countries were influenced and under pressure by the globalization. This effect also caused the government system failure and the social capital loss issues. Because of the economic crisis, the unemployment rate climbed up rapidly and continuously, and the social welfare system was collapsed as well. Therefore, the income of the government was decreasing obviously, but the public expenses were increasing and expanding rapidly. Those problems brought the European country which was used to relying on the unemployment benefits and pensions a huge impact (Borzaga, C., & Santuari, A, 2003). In addition, because of the economy impact, the European government had no ability to respond to the demands of the unemployed, thus, the grassroots citizen started to establish different organizations and the third sector (co-operative which was the mainly organization form) to play the residual role of the government. According to the development history and background described above, the main purpose of the social enterprise rising up in Europe was based on the following two core strategies: Firstly, “work integration", which is trying to help the disabled and long-term unemployed of disadvantaged people to solve their unemployment problem. Secondly, to offer the health and education related services (Evers, 2001; Laville& Nyssens, 2001).

1980年代晚期，歐洲社會企業的概念首次出現在義大利，其國會於1991年制定了一項新的法定型式: “社會合作社”，並將社會合作社區分為兩種類型: 一種為"A型社會合作社"，此一類型的組織宗旨為提供社會、健康與教育的服務；另一種為”B型社會合作社”，則為提供工作整合服務給弱勢族群的組織。自此之後，歐洲其他各國也陸續跟進，推動相關法條以推廣社會企業(Defourny& Nyssens, 2008)。然而，“社會企業”始作為術語，則是在1994年“歐洲經濟與合作組織”的書面報告中所提出，定義為既利用市場又利用非市場資源以使低技術工人重返工作崗位的組織(金錦萍, 2009)。

In Europe, the notion of social enterprise was first appeared in Italy in the late 1980s. In 1991, the Italian parliament created a new type of legal form: “Social Co-operative". It was distinguished into two types of social co-operative, one of them called “A-type social co-operative", which includes the organization that provides social, health, and educational services; another one called “B-type social co-operative", which includes the organization that provides work integration service to the disadvantaged people. Since then, other European countries also passed new laws afterwards to promote social enterprises (Defourny& Nyssens, 2008). Moreover,  the term of “Social Enterprise" first appeared and began to be used in the report of the EMES European Research Network (金錦萍, 2009).

相較於歐洲，美國社會企業的發展稍晚一些。由於1970晚期至1980年代期間發生經濟衰退，使得政府支出大幅縮減，加上失業率戲劇性的攀升，許多慈善團體在面臨需求增加的同時，卻失去了金源。因此，有越來越多的慈善團體在此時認為需要增加贊助與捐贈資源以外的其他收入來源，美國許多組織自此開始逐漸依賴商業活動以產生收入並大力擴張此類型的社會企業。於1982年至2002年期間，慈善團體的收入中從商業活動中獲取的部分增長了20% (Doeringer, M. F., 2010)。另一方面，傳統企業慈善也開始轉型，從傳統的”給魚”的角色，改變為”給釣竿”的永續經營策略，此核心策略為“社會投資”。在此情況下，社會企業被視為非營利組織追求財政永續的“聖杯” (鄭勝分&王致雅, 2010)。相較於前述歐洲社會企業致力於解決慣性結構所造成的失業問題，美國對社會企業的定義，則較偏向由非營利組織提供一些服務以創造收入，而這些服務過去一般被認為是非營利組織所負責的範疇，如提供免費視力檢查的同時也銷售低價眼鏡給低收入人口的組織(Doeringer, M. F., 2010)。

In contrast with Europe, the development of social enterprise in the USA was a bit later. Due to the economic recession happened between the late 1970s and 1980s, the government cut the budget of the expenses. Moreover, the unemployment rate increased rapidly, a lot of charities needed to face the situation that the social demands increased but lacked of financial support from the government.  Therefore, more and more charities felt the need to earn their revenue from sources other than grants and donations at that time. Since then, several charities have begun to rely on commercial activities for revenue and developing this type of social enterprise in the USA.  As a result, the portion of income that those charities gained from commercial activities was increased by 20% between 1982 and 2002 (Doeringer, M. F., 2010). On the other hand, the traditional charity also began to transform, from a traditional role of ‘fish giver’ to a ‘fish rod provider’. The core of this strategy is ‘social investment’, therefore, under this situation, the social enterprise was considered as a ‘holy grail’ for the non-profit organizations to pursue their financial sustainability (鄭勝分&王致雅, 2010).  Comparing to the concept of social enterprise in Europe, which focused on resolving the chronic structural unemployment problems, the definition of social enterprise in the USA generally reflects an aim on generating income for organizations that provide services typically be considered as being provided by the nonprofit sectors. Such as the organization provides free eye exams while selling low-cost eyeglasses to the low-income populations (Doeringer, M. F., 2010).

從上述的發展歷史可知，不同國家對社會企業的定義與相關規範主要是根據各國的經濟與社會環境問題為其制定的基礎，並提出相應的解決方案與規範。從文獻資料分析中，亦可見各時期的研究者隨著時代與環境背景的不同，對於社會企業的本質定義與發展也有所不同。早期的社會企業定義主要針對非營利私人組織，透過提供與其目標相關的商品或服務來支持社區，並發展能夠賺取收入的策略，作為降低對政府的補助款依賴的回應(Defourny& Nyssens, 2008)。隨著時間的演變，近年來，社會企業定義從針對非營利組織擴大到各種組織型式，其關注的議題也隨著時代的不同而不斷擴大，從失業、社會公共服務、文化問題乃至於再生能源、公平交易等新議題(OECD, 2013)。不論是何種組織型式與活動，社會企業的定義從原來專注在組織之法律型式，轉變為著重組織與社會企業在本質上的差異。雖然社會企業的概念及定義已被重複地爭論了很久，至今在國際上仍缺乏統一的定義(Park, C., & Wilding, M., 2013; Ridley, 2007)。然而，一個由社會企業聯盟所推崇的普遍定義指出: 社會企業並非由其法律狀態而是由其本質來定義，所謂的本質指的是其社會目標與結果，而其基礎為將社會使命融入組織結構與管理，以及其透過交易活動產生利益的使用方式(Ridley, 2007) 。

According to the results of the literature review in this study, the definition and relative regulations of social enterprise in different countries and periods were defined and set up by solving either their economic or social environmental problems basically. In the early period, the definition of social enterprise was meant a non-for-profit private organization which provides products or services related to their purpose to benefit the community, and develops the ‘earned income strategy’ as a response to reduce the subsidy dependency from the government (Defourny& Nyssens, 2008). As time goes by, in recent years, the definition of social enterprise has expanded from non-for-profit organization to various organizational formats, moreover, the range of the activities and issues it focuses was different and has expanded as well, from unemployment, social public services, culture issues to renewable energies, fair trade, and so on (OECD, 2013). No matter what kinds of the organizational formats and activities, the definition of social enterprise has changed from the focus on the legal formats to comparing the nature between the organization and social enterprise.  Even though the concept and definition of social enterprise have already been debated repeatedly for a long time, but it’s still a lack of a consensus definition of social enterprise in the International so far (Park, C., & Wilding, M., 2013; Ridley, 2007). However, there is a popular definition which was promoted by the Social Enterprise Coalition: “A social enterprise is not defined by its legal status but by its nature. The nature means its social aims and outcomes, that the basis on which its social mission is embedded in its organizational structure and governance, and the way it uses the profits that it generates through trading activities"(Ridley, 2007).

於第一部瞭解了社會企業在歐美的發展起源後，那麼其在亞洲又是如何開始發展的呢？接著，於下一篇文章中，我將說明已建立社會企業相關法規的韓國以及審核法規中的臺灣兩者之發展起源！

We realize how the social enterprise began and developed in Europe and America from Part1, but how’s it happened in Asia? In the next part, we’ll talk about how the social enterprise developed in Korea and Taiwan, and what kinds of the social enterprise regulations have already been formulated in these two countries!