Social Enterprise Design

Abstract

This chapter cites the corporate reform proposal that develops social enterprises further and deeply explores emerging and enduring forms. It explains the third-party B Corp certification and design of a business as a benefit corporation, which directly challenges shareholder primacy and provides an alternative enterprise design for multi-stakeholder businesses. It also analyzes scholarship from a variety of disciplines, which brings out the strengths and weaknesses of alternative to investor-owned corporations. The chapter mentions the emerging and most enduring values-based business form: cooperatives. It provides a broad introduction to the history, theories, economic impact, and values and principles of cooperatives as a form of enterprise, which could be utilized to address the most pressing sustainable development issues of the twenty-first century.