Key factors for success of social enterprises in Italy. Analysis of financial and operating performance

Assessing social performance is one of the greatest challenges for practitioners and researchers in social entrepreneurship. Even though social enterprises (SEs) have the main goal of achieving social purposes, they should also be able to economically and financially survive to meet their aim and accomplish their tasks. To this purpose, we investigate if the key factors leading to the financial and operating performance are the same as those of for-profit firms, by using Italian data at a firm level during the period 2002-2013. We find that the standard financial and operating factors characterising for-profit firms’ performance play a crucial role for SEs’ results as well. Moreover, territorial and socio-economic variables seem to have a positive impact on financial performance. From a policy perspective, this may imply that further programs (e.g. safety-oriented and those promoting facilities in the territory) should be locally adopted to support the SEs’ activity and development.