Identification of opportunities for social entrepreneurship in Slovakia to help mitigate long-term unemployment

Abstract

Main objectives of this master thesis are to identify good practices and challenges in social entrepreneurship and describe social entrepreneurship business models and thus help to support the development of social entrepreneurship in Slovakia. Actors in the social economy, which are not necessarily covered by the term “social enterprise” as defined by law, but which are not only socially but also entrepreneurially driven, are in the minority, and the social entrepreneurship in Slovakia is still in its nascent phase. Contrary to the fact, that Slovakia has a massive network of social service providers, many social challenges are addressed marginally, ineffectively or remain unaddressed at all. The author hopes that the findings of the paper might contribute to decreasing long-term unemployment the persistent problem of the Slovak economy. The author has decided on an international literature review, as well as one-on-one personal interviews with social entrepreneurs from the Central European region and Slovakia and hopes to give practical recommendations to existing and aspiring social entrepreneurs.