A More Socio-Environmentally Responsive Way to Organise the Firm? A Case Study on Danish Social Enterprise Law

Abstract

It has been claimed that social enterprises have the capacity to counteract the negative impact that business has had on the environment, inequality and social cohesion. Yet, such claims remain largely untested - commentators have not attempted to actually apply insights from the social enterprise law context to debates within the wider field of corporate governance. A primary reason for this inconsistency is that, from a European perspective, there is a dearth of scholarship that aims to analytically model social enterprise law. This is problematic because there is not an established body of work from which commentators can draw. In turn, the scope for effectively leveraging social enterprise law within more mainstream corporate sustainability discourses is hindered. This article contributes an analytical model of Danish social enterprise law to the literature. The hope is that this case study will encourage, and equip, commentators to not only claim that social enterprise law has applicability in progressive corporate reform debates, but to also show directly how, and where, this might be so.