Policy drivers and tools influencing the development of social enterprises in Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose
Taiwan promotes social enterprises with the Social Enterprise Action Plan and Social Innovation Action Plan, focusing on solving social problems and achieving sustainable development goals. This study aims to clarify the impetus for the above policies and determines whether the relevant policy tools can achieve the established policy goals.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts the in-depth interview method and uses the “social impact investment framework” constructed by OEDC and Dunn’s definition of public policy stakeholders to select 22 respondents, who were divided into three groups.
Findings
Taiwan’s decision-making in social enterprise policy is mainly driven by the pressure of youth unemployment and the 318-student movement. Intrinsic motivation strategies popularized the concept of social enterprise. Various strategies are used to break the limitations and diversify the organization, trigger more diverse social investments, broaden the goals of investment and complete the social enterprise ecosystem through these. Taiwan’s social enterprise policies are consistent with the global trend of “replacing subsidies with investment.”
Originality/value
This study shows that social enterprises generate mutual benefits between investors and social enterprises, that is, achieve free matching through external mechanisms. This study fills the gaps in Oliver’s “behavioral cube” framework of policy instruments. A “behavioral four-dimensional matrix” composed of nudge, shove, budge and reciprocity is proposed to complete the framework for social enterprise policy analysis tools.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study details part of the research results of the National Science and Technology Council’s special research project, “The Impact of Social Investment on the Development of Social Enterprises: From the Perspective of Historical Institutional Theory.” The first draft of these results was published in the “2020 Social Enterprise Symposium” of Fu Jen Catholic University, titled “The Impact of Social Investment on the Formation of Social Enterprise System: A Behavioral Policy Perspective” and won the Excellent Paper Award.
Citation
Chang, C.-T. and Cheng, S.-F. (2024), "Policy drivers and tools influencing the development of social enterprises in Taiwan", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-05-2023-0058
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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