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This paper aims to compare profiles of social enterprises as they are emerging in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea and to highlight common features across countries allowing the identification of (partly) East‐Asian‐specific model(s) of social enterprise.

The paper first examines the socio‐economic contexts in which new public policies and new NPOs' initiatives were launched to offer innovative solutions to current challenges, especially unemployment. Interactions between Eastern Asia and Western regions (EU, USA) are also analysed as to experiments and conceptions of social enterprise. In order to identify major convergences and divergences across countries in Eastern Asia, we rely on country studies presented in this issue as well as on a broad literature, related more specifically to the development and roles of NPOs and co‐operatives in this region.

Five major models of social enterprise with specific dynamics can be identified in Eastern Asia. State influence and driving forces linked to public policies make these models rather different from the typical US social enterprise; as for the role of civil society, it seems weaker than in Western contexts but is growing significantly. Co‐operative movements also play a significant role in shaping some social enterprise models. Finally, two conditions identified as critical for the development of social economy organisations – a “condition of necessity” and a “condition of shared destiny” – seem to be valid in Eastern Asia as well, provided they are properly reinterpreted.

As in other regions, the concept of social enterprise itself only begins to be used in Eastern Asia, and no specific legislation deals explicitly with social enterprise as such, except in South Korea. So the main challenge was to identify all categories of initiatives which can be described as part of the new “social enterprise phenomenon”. The understanding of the latter may evolve over time and vary across countries.

The present analysis, just like the other four papers in this issue, is a result of a joint research project of the EMES European Research Network and East‐Asian researchers. Country studies were conducted along common broad guidelines, and they were discussed and revised at various stages, which insured a fairly good level of comparability. Moreover, this seems to be the first systematic comparative analysis on social enterprise involving all industrialised countries in Eastern Asia.

This paper aims to examine the distinctiveness of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalism perspective. From this perspective, the author focuses on the proactive roles played by the government in the process of emergence and formulation of social enterprises in South Korea. The author roots this paper in the concept of the developmental state and examines how this concept applies to newly emerging social enterprises in South Korea.

This paper first introduces the process of South Korean social enterprises’ emergence as an independent phenomenon. The author explains the process with a link to governmental actions, such as the introduction of public programs and government acts. Second, this paper introduces the concept of developmental state which captures the proactive role of the state in social, economic and political development in South Korea. Third, this paper applies the institutional framework proposed by Kerlin (2013) to see how the South Korean social enterprise model can be located from a comparative perspective and how the South Korean model can contribute to the expansion of the existing framework.

This paper finds that the state involvement in South Korea is a reflection of the historical path of the developmental state. The cross-comparison of South Korean social enterprises from a historical institutionalist approach finds that the South Korean case may contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate by suggesting taking a Weberian ideal type of an interventionist state into account for an extension of the proposed framework. This paper also uncovered the strategic approach of the South Korean Government in utilizing this public policy tool by adopting and combining existing social enterprise models.

This paper demonstrates the state’s intents to mobilize economic and societal resources as public policy intervention tools, which can be understood from a developmental state context. This role would be distinct when compared to those in Europe and the USA. This paper has a limitation to restrict its analytical scope to formally recognized social enterprises because it focuses on the role of the state in utilizing social enterprises for public policy agenda: social development and social welfare provision.

As a practical implication, this study might provide an insightful framework for South Korean public policy makers, outlining the contributions and limitations of state-led public policies associated with social enterprises. As seen in the historical path of governmental interventions, governmental public policies do not necessarily guarantee their sustainable community impacts without the consideration of private or nonprofit actors’ spontaneous involvements. The flip side of state-led interventions requires policy makers to become more cautious, as they address social problems with public policy intents.

The majority of current studies on social enterprises in South Korea mainly focus on reporting the quantitative increase in the number of registered social enterprises. Beyond this quantitative description of its achievement, this paper also provides a historical narration and philosophical background of this phenomenon. Additionally, it shows how this artificial government intervention in social enterprises could be accepted from a historical perspective and brought remarkable responses from the private and civil society sectors in South Korea.

The purpose of this study is to develop BSC model of social enterprise. Performance analysis tool of BSC have been brought over from the business world, designed and created from the perspectives of profit‐based businesses. The BSC is a strategic performance measurement and management tool designed for the private sector acting as a communication/information and learning system, to measure “where we are now” and “where to aim for next”. It prescribes a plan for translating “vision” and “strategy” into concrete action across four perspectives at different stages, depending on the business. These perspectives are “financial”, “customer”, “internal processes” and “learning and growth”, each of which is connected by cause‐and‐effect relationships that reflect the firm’s strategy. Social aims of social enterprise are to accomplish desired outcomes which are to employ vulnerable people and to provide social services. The measurement factors of financial perspective are stable funding, efficiency of budgeting, stakeholders’ financial supports, and trade profit. The measurement factors of customer perspective are government, social service users, employees, local communities, supplier, social activity company, and partnership with external organizations. The measurement factors of internal process perspective are organizational culture, organizational structure/management, internal/external communication, quality of products and services, information sharing. The measurement factors of learning and growth perspective are training and development, management participation, knowledge sharing, leadership of CEO and manager, and learning culture.

Social Enterprise (SE) has a vital role to play in helping meet some main commitments for Korea‐growing economy; supporting stronger communities; closing opportunity gap‐together with the developing a vibrant third sector. The Strategy and action plan is intend to grow and develop us of social enterprise business model in Korea. The sustainable strategy and action plan will be useful for Korea’s Social enterprise. This paper will suggest that from the sustainable strategy to action plan of social enterprise in Korea.

This study aims to concentrate on a specific perspective that has mostly been ignored: employees in social enterprises (SEs). It proposes that employees in SEs should be treated with equal importance to outside beneficiaries within the SEs’ value-creating mission.

A multiple case study approach is adopted, and semi-structured interviews are the primary means of data collection.

The results show that while economic values are fundamental for the employment relationship, social values play the leading role in employees’ motivation; thus, they can significantly affect the organization’s operation and development.

This work contributes to Maslow’s need theory and psychological contract theory regarding their application to SEs. Practical lessons and suggestions are also provided for SEs’ development.

By emphasizing the value-creating mission of SEs with the new perspective of including employees in it, this work provides empirical evidence and practical lessons for SEs, especially Asian SEs, in terms of management and strategy.

This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.