Social business law
The need for specific legal rules for the good growth of particular production organisations
Social business is a particular expression of the culture of production unconcerned with profit as its primary goal, instead focusing on achieving other targets deemed no less important. We’re still talking about fully fledged business – social business – but it requires a series of management and legal measures to make it effective and efficient. Elisabetta Righini of the of the University of Urbino’s Department of Law reflects on this area. In a chapter of a book that has just been published, she starts from focusing on the true nature of social business and comes to define their general legal outline paying attention to the Italian context.
Righini begins by considering the definition of social business provided by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus: Social business is “a business which is created solely for the purpose of solving a social or environmental problem, and it is a business from which owners do not take any dividend except to recoup their own investment.” It is therefore business in which environmental or social sensitivity and awareness play a decisive and specific role, becoming essential components of the concept of social business as well as shaping the business management in its entirety. It’s a delicate and complicated path, which must be driven by a strong business culture placed alongside those very sensitivities that don’t focus on “making profit and balancing the books”.
Elisabetta Righini therefore specifies that carrying out the functions for which social businesses are conceived and created also requires redefinition of the legal and institutional system. This step is required to allow this particular form of economic organisation to completely fulfil its function. We are therefore talking about efficiency that extends beyond accounting and management to take in other fields of business activity. These areas must be well understood and integrated with business operations in a continuous exchange between economic and management rules and urges arising from attention to others and to the environment.
Answering questions concerning the legal structure of social business thus becomes a path to make these particular production organisations, and in fact the culture of production that drives them, grow in a balanced, helpful way.
Imprenditoria sociale e impegno ambientale per una nuova economia (Social Business and Environmental Engagement for a New Economy)
Elisabetta Righini (Department of Law – Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza DIGIUR, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy) in Place Based Approaches to Sustainability, vol. II, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024
The need for specific legal rules for the good growth of particular production organisations
Social business is a particular expression of the culture of production unconcerned with profit as its primary goal, instead focusing on achieving other targets deemed no less important. We’re still talking about fully fledged business – social business – but it requires a series of management and legal measures to make it effective and efficient. Elisabetta Righini of the of the University of Urbino’s Department of Law reflects on this area. In a chapter of a book that has just been published, she starts from focusing on the true nature of social business and comes to define their general legal outline paying attention to the Italian context.
Righini begins by considering the definition of social business provided by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus: Social business is “a business which is created solely for the purpose of solving a social or environmental problem, and it is a business from which owners do not take any dividend except to recoup their own investment.” It is therefore business in which environmental or social sensitivity and awareness play a decisive and specific role, becoming essential components of the concept of social business as well as shaping the business management in its entirety. It’s a delicate and complicated path, which must be driven by a strong business culture placed alongside those very sensitivities that don’t focus on “making profit and balancing the books”.
Elisabetta Righini therefore specifies that carrying out the functions for which social businesses are conceived and created also requires redefinition of the legal and institutional system. This step is required to allow this particular form of economic organisation to completely fulfil its function. We are therefore talking about efficiency that extends beyond accounting and management to take in other fields of business activity. These areas must be well understood and integrated with business operations in a continuous exchange between economic and management rules and urges arising from attention to others and to the environment.
Answering questions concerning the legal structure of social business thus becomes a path to make these particular production organisations, and in fact the culture of production that drives them, grow in a balanced, helpful way.
Imprenditoria sociale e impegno ambientale per una nuova economia (Social Business and Environmental Engagement for a New Economy)
Elisabetta Righini (Department of Law – Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza DIGIUR, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy) in Place Based Approaches to Sustainability, vol. II, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024