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The common good refers to contextual conditions that contribute to human wellbeing and flourishing, such as prosperous communities and environmental sustainability. In this paper, we consider how entrepreneurship impacts society by investigating the generalized outcomes of social entrepreneurship on the common good. From a qualitative study of ten large and profitable social enterprises in the United Kingdom, we theorize how social entrepreneurship contributes to the common good in the short and long term. We also conjecture how some commercial practices undermine the common good and further, explain how the common good performs as a conceptual anchor for social entrepreneurship.

Public economics has recently introduced the concept of global public goods as a new category of public goods whose provision is central for promoting the well‐being of individuals in today's globalized world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which introducing this new concept in international development is helpful for understanding human well‐being enhancement.

The paper considers some implications of the concept of the common good for international development.

The concept of global public goods could be more effective if the conception of well‐being it assumes is broadened beyond the individual level. “Living well” or the “good life” does not dwell in individual lives only, but also in the lives of the communities which human beings form. A successful provision of global public goods depends on this recognition that the “good life” of the communities that people form is a constitutive component of the “good life” of individual human beings.

The paper suggests that the rediscovery of the concept of the common good, and identification of how to nurture it, constitute one of the major tasks for development theory and policy.

The crisis of confidence in political institutions has become a phenomenon with uniform trends across Europe. Nevertheless, citizens still express interest in politics and are engaged in political and social activities. What are the issues that still motivate them to go to the polls and/or engage in non-institutional forms of political participation? The case study of the Italian referendum in favour of the “Water Common Good” (June 2011) is particularly appropriate to explore these issues and motivations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper proposes a multidisciplinary common good’s framework focusing on its social and political challenges. As the referendum succeeded also thanks to the rhetorical effectiveness of the “common good” epithet, a survey on 120 Roman citizens who voted in favour of the “Water Common Good” was conducted. The hypothesis was that the referendum success could be associated with social needs to defend strategic resources (“commons”) by actively participating in the deliberations on them. A quantitative non-probabilistic research was carried out face-to-face, through a standardized and semi-structured questionnaire.

The main findings refer to the leading role that distrust in political institutions, civil society activism and common good rhetorical effectiveness played.

The most original contribution of this paper is the explanatory and stipulative definition of common good, which reduces the semantic uncertainty of the concept including common sense meanings. This novel conceptualization has practical implications in policy terms, as it explicates the social need to change the way of conceiving the relationship with strategic resources and decision-making processes concerning them.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze economically several versions of the philosophical common good in order to contribute to the search for a viable conceptualization of the common good.

The paper presents an economic analysis of the common good by examining the extent to which eight different versions of the philosophical concept possess the consumption characteristics of excludability and rivalry – and thus how each version may be classified as an economic good: private, public, common, or club.

One of the examined versions of the philosophical common good is an economic common good; three versions are club goods; and four versions are public goods. Only those versions of the common good that are classifiable as public goods merit consideration as adequate conceptualizations in political and philosophical thought. In assessing the admissible versions the authors conclude that a viable conceptualization of the common good may simply be the maintenance of a peaceful social order that allows people to pursue their individual and collective goals in community.

The paper shows that an analysis of the philosophical common good using the economic criteria of excludability and rivalry can contribute to common good discourse.

Public realm urban regeneration projects aim to provide facilities for the common good such as improved road systems, public parks, museums and cultural institutions. Driven by political priorities, the expected benefits for society comprise of the proposed regeneration outcomes articulated in a masterplan vision. As a philosophical concept, common good in the context of urban regeneration is explored in this study to understand the expectations for major, long-term regeneration projects and the intended project objectives. In the approach to governance, there should be a relationship between monitoring indicators adopted by the regeneration project as part of the governance framework and their alignment with the common good. These concepts are analysed through a case study of the development and reporting of benchmark indicators established at the start of a major 20-year urban redevelopment in 2010. The monitoring and enhancement concept implemented required indicators to be developed and embedded in the regeneration process to, not only monitor, but also enhance sustainability. The longitudinal case study, at the interim point 10 years since the establishment of these indicators, will evaluate the sustainability of the urban regeneration and evaluate current evidence for the common good. The indicators were developed following the principles of a theme orientated framework in line with the UK and Scottish Government approach at that time. The process of indicator development was iterative, refined and finalised through working closely with local authority, Scottish Enterprise and partnership stakeholders (civic oriented organisations) to capture evidence of progress towards the masterplan vision. Ten years on, conclusions examine whether these indicators could be used a proxy for common good. The conclusion will identify the extent to which we would need to revise indicators to address any gaps to become a more accurate measure of common good.

Stakeholder theory may be the Archimedes lever that allows defining a possible Economy for the Common Good; however, the theory’s current level of development does not enable it to escape the criticism that considers it nothing more than shared egoism. The expansion of the concept of stakeholder, including not only groups that collaborate in the creation of value or which are actively impacted by the organisation, but also incorporating those affected by omission – non-stakeholders – would lead to the reconciliation of stakeholder theory and the common good. Nevertheless, to set it within corporate practice, besides having selfish and altruist incentives, would be of interest for the conceptual development of shapeholders, understood as the link between non-stakeholders’ interests and needs, and firms.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

This paper aims to investigate the extent to which accounting standards for social impact reporting are in the public interest. This study aims to explore what the public interest means for social impact reporting by charities; and assess the extent to which the accounting standardisation of social impact reporting supports the public interest so defined.

This study conducts a case study of how stakeholders in Australian charities conceptualise the public interest when discussing accounting standardisation. This paper distinguishes three concepts of the public interest from prior research, namely, aggregative, processual and common good. For each, this paper analyses the implications for accounting and how accountants serve the public interest, and how they align with stakeholder views.

Stakeholder views align with the aggregative and processual concepts of public interest, however this was contested and partial. Accounting standards for social impact reporting will only serve the public interest if they also capture and implement the common good approach.

Clarifying how key stakeholders interpret the public interest can help standard-setters and governments design (or withhold) accounting standards on social impact reporting. This paper also distinguishes different practical roles for accountants in this domain – information merchants, umpires or advocates, which each public interest concept implies.

This paper extends prior research on accounting for the public interest to social impact reporting. The paper empirically demonstrates the salience of the common good concept of public interest and demonstrates the diversity of views on the standardisation of social impact reporting by charities.

This paper aims to relate conceptually decent work and the economy for the common good describing the main contributions of the former to the latter.

This conceptual paper analyses the relationships between the values of the economy for the common good that have been explicitly stated and the psychological dimensions of the decent work concept.

Four conceptual propositions concerning the contributions of decent work to the economy for the common good are presented.

Because the four conceptual propositions were not submitted to empirical research, future studies are suggested.

The pursuit of decent work is aligned with the economy for the common good, which contributes to reinforcing both proposals.

Both decent work and the economy for the common good are synergistic and values-based approaches that consider the social system as a whole instead of proposing strategies to improve the competitive advantage of one over the other. This synergistic idea through cooperation contributes to overcoming the limitations of “business as usual”.

This is the first paper discussing the relationships between decent work and the economy for the common good.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.