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In Hungary, as in other Central and Eastern European countries, the concept of social enterprise (SE) has attracted increased attention in recent years, with certain key actors shaping the organisational field. This growing interest is largely because of the availability of European Union funds focussing on the work integration of disadvantaged groups but ignoring other possible roles of SEs. This study aims to consider a seldom examined and underfunded area: SEs’ institutional environment and organisational activities in the social and health sectors.

Based on neoinstitutional theory, the paper uses desk research and qualitative case studies. It presents the experiences of SEs providing social and health services for specific disadvantaged groups.

This paper identified the key actors influencing the everyday operation of SEs and examined their connections, interactions and partnerships. Based on the findings, SEs primarily depend on the central state, public social and health institutions and local governments. At the same time, their connections with private customers, networks, development and support organisations, third sector organisations and for-profit enterprises are less significant. The key actors have a relevant impact on the legal form, main activities and the financial and human resources of SEs. SEs, however, have little influence on their institutional environment.

The paper contributes to understanding the opportunities and barriers of SEs in Hungary and, more generally, in Central and Eastern Europe, especially regarding their place in social and health services.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how and to what extent social enterprise can contribute to improving women's life in Hungary.

The case study was based on a four-month organizational ethnographic study of a café. Participant and non-participant observations were supplemented with interviews with the founder, the manager, visitors and informal conversations with the staff and visitors. Social media communication was also reviewed.

The empirical results from the organizational ethnography allowed us to gain insights into the impact of the investigated organization on its target group, young mothers, in a post-socialist gender context. The dominant post-socialist gender regime has remained almost entirely untouched and the outcome of the operation of the social enterprise only helped women to accommodate their everyday life to their disadvantaged social situation.

While previous studies have uncovered the dualistic nature of social enterprises, this analysis shows that an award-winning and popular social enterprise in Hungary could nevertheless only minimally influence the social situation of women. In spite of the good intention of the owner, the all-encompassing prescribed gender roles are hardly questioned, and consequently, women's situation hardly ameliorates.

Social hackathons are events designed to craft social change using technology that enables citizen empowerment or addresses societal issues by deploying data. Hackathons provide a framework for organizing to help create prototypes and business models through interaction with technology. The relevance of the sociomateriality of the emergent technology (prototype) and organizational structure raises the question if viable and impactful solutions can be developed within such frames.

This study applies an inductive research methodology based on ethnographic participant observation, interviews with participants and event organizers, and qualitative insights from surveys.

Events such as social hackathons are centered around technology and share a vision of creating opportunities for change. The materiality of prototypes may define their interaction patterns. The differentiation of the embodiment and emergent structuration of technology may be a breaking point for in-group dynamics and a barrier to social innovation. The emergent structuration of technology with a longer initial phase of problem definition and ideation within a group was found to have more potential for impactful embodiment with the technological artifact. Some cases reveal that “expert” participants who shared visions of change enabled by technology were constrained by other members.

The paper suggests an extended view on the connection of sociomateriality, organizing and social impact.

In this chapter, Andrea Óhidy provides an overview of some central issues of the book. First, she shows the similarities in the challenges to increase the participation and success of Roma people in education and lifelong learning in the selected European countries; then, she discusses their policies and support programmes, which, on the one hand, try to improve the social situation of the Roma while promoting minority language and culture, on the other hand. She finds the reason for their similarities regarding the wording, defining and communicating and also concerning the main ideas and concrete projects for possible solutions, in the Roma inclusion policy of the European Union in the frame of the Open Method of Coordination, which has been introduced within the Lisbon Strategy, linked to the idea of lifelong learning. She considers the realisation of these policy measures at national, regional and local levels to have shown only unsatisfactory results until now.