Introduction

This chapter deals with the design of social enterprise policy in Korea, with a particular focus on whether policy design has followed the inherent objectives of social enterprises such as social and entrepreneurial aspects and the double bottom line, as well as the impact of policies on social enterprises.

In the face of ‘jobless growth’ in the early to mid-2000s, the Korean government formulated social enterprise policy as a means to resolve this problem. The initial policy goal of social enterprise policy was boosting the number of jobs, but this came under criticism because providing jobs is only one aspect of the goals that social enterprises are supposed to pursue (Park, 2009; Park and Wilding, 2013). This is clearly seen in terms of the government's use of social enterprises as a policy tool through the approval system, and the emphasis on job creation. Following the policy legacy of the state-driven approach to solving social problems in Korea (Lee, 2014b), social enterprise policy was also driven by the government. The aim of this chapter is to look at the impact of these government-centred social enterprise policies on social enterprises over the past ten years.

This chapter presents the policy changes in Korea from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s to examine how social enterprise policy came about, whether the main thrust of social enterprise policy matched with social demands, and the outcomes of such policies, including an evaluation of their impact.

Social enterprise policy in Korea

This section presents an overview of the history of social enterprise policy in Korea, broken down into three periods from the late 1990s to the present.

Period one: from infancy and growing concerns to social enterprise

Demands for social enterprises came from external shocks that disrupted the traditional welfare system in Korea, such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The Korean welfare system traditionally placed more emphasis on families and employers than the state. However, the established system came under threat due to the financial crisis. A large number of businesses underwent structural reforms at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and many people lost their jobs and became unable to support their families.

As highlighted in Table 15.1, in the face of these urgent problems, the Korean government introduced the ‘Public Work Program’ as part of the National Basic Livelihood Security Act in 1999.