The uniqueness of solidarity entrepreneurship

Abstract

The article aims to bring evidence that the solidarity economic undertakings, based on voluntary association, productive cooperation and self-management, employ a unique rationality, different from the capitalistic one. Classical authors such as Schumpeter, Polanyi and Weber, besides some scholars dedicated to the solidarity economy or to micro-entrepreneurship, such as Laville, Portela and Hespanha, give us a theoretical framework, which is used to review the concept of entrepreneurship and to discuss the findings of some empirical investigations, particularly regarding solidarity micro-enterprises. The data base under analysis is provided by the national mapping of the solidarity economy in Brazil and by a qualitative study about small solidarity-based economic experiences, which focused on the relevance of self-management and cooperation, as well as of efficiency and sustainability. Despite their weaknesses and limitations, these experiences reveal the existence of a particular associative kind of entrepreneurship, guided simultaneously by economic and social objectives. This provides convincing empirical arguments for the adoption of a specific approach on entrepreneurship in the context of the solidarity economy and, under certain aspects, in the broader context of small enterprises.

Key words: associativism, solidarity economy, micro-entrepreneurship, economic rationality