An introduction to social enterprise sector in Finland, given in Aalto university, Social Entrepreneurship and Migration -seminar

1. Social Entrepreneurship in
Finland
Saila Tykkyläinen
LUT School of Business and Management
2.11.2015 | Aalto

2. Background and context
Development path
− Roots in III sector service provision, co-operative movement,
entrepreneurship as an alternative for civil society activities or employment
− Development projects with ESR and ERDF funding
− New, poorly known and contested concept
SailaTykkyläinen
Recent reviews and studies
- ETLA: Esiselvitys yhteiskunnallisesta yrittämisestä,
2015.
- LUT: Yhteiskunnallinen yrittäjyys innovatiivisessa
arvonluonnissa, 2015.
- Russell, Pättiniemi and Koivuneva, 2014: A map of
social enteprises and their ecosystems is Europe. A
Country report on Finland. European commission
- Kostilainen and Tykkyläinen, 2013: The
Characteristics of Finnish Social Enteprises.
- Karjalainen ja Syrjänen, 2009: Onko Suomessa
yhteiskunnallisia yrityksiä?

3. Ecosystem
Ecosystem is fragile and patchy
− Policy actions: Law on work integration social enterprises (2003),
recommendations by MEE’s working group on SE (2010-2011)
− Marketing and awareness rising: Social Enteprise Mark (2011)
− Community building and interest representation: SYY ry (2009), Arvo-
liitto ry (2014)
− Finance: No specialized sources of funding. Sitra’s project on impact
investment (2014-2016), crowdfunding platforms and instruments
− Research and education: Coordinated by Finsern. Some actors in the field
Aalto, LUT, Diaconia University of Applied Sciences,
− Training and consultation: Kasvuhuone, KSL - opintokeskus
SailaTykkyläinen

4. Finnish social enterprises
Criteria applied by SEM and Arvo-liitto
- Operates in markets, takes financial risks
- Primary purpose is to produce common good
- Major part of profits is used to promote the company’s social aim
- Transparency and openness of the business
The difficulty of counting…
- ETLA (2015): more than 19 000 SEs which have about 126 000 employees (registered
associations, n=3000 in Russell et al., not included)
- Russell et al. (2014): about 5 000 SEs (privately owned SMEs not included)
- Karjalainen ja Syrjänen (2009): about 12 000 SEs (only SMEs included)
Variety regarding social causes, ownership structures, industries, organizational forms, sizes
and life spans is great (Etla, 2015; Kostilainen ja Tykkyläinen, 2013).
Some Finnish peculiarities
- Social mission can be pursued with profit distribution
- More strongly associated with operational logics and terms of business sector than with
those of community economy
- Some (recognized) SEs are owned by public sector actors
LappeenrantaUniversityofTechnologySailaTykkyläinen

5. LappeenrantaUniversityofTechnologySailaTykkyläinen
Social-impact enterprise: Mifuko Ltd.
Social-profit enterprise: Diacor Ltd.
Social-process enterprise: Diadome Ltd.
Social-output enterprise: Viittakivi Ltd.

6. Let’s stay in touch, saila.tykkylainen@lut.fi
presentation available in www.slideshare.org
THANK YOU!
KIITOS!
LappeenrantaUniversityofTechnology