Opportunities for social enterprise in Germany - Evidence from an expert survey

Today, governments and the public sector are increasingly confronted with a complex range of social problems, such as education deficiencies, old-age poverty, or unemployment. The private sector has started to address these challenges by offering innovative, sustainable, and efficient solutions to social needs. This article presents research results from an online Delphi survey conducted with 68 experts concerning the potential of social enterprise as a problem-solving tool for industrialized countries. Thereby, the survey compiled expert knowledge regarding the establishment of social enterprise in the future to provide a better understanding of which institutional and social structures will influence the development of social enterprise in industrialized countries. The scope of this research is Germany, but results are to some extent generalizable to other European Countries.