The concepts of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship are attracting rapidly increasing attention from a wide audience and are perceived as defining innovative and dynamic responses to major global challenges in today's societies. Social Enterprise and the Third Sector presents the more comprehensive set of contributions reflecting the European side of this debate, with frequent connections to evolutions in other parts of the world.

Introduction to the Social Enterprise Field (Jacques Defourny, Lars Hulgård and Victor Pestoff) Section I: The Dynamics of Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship: Theoretical Foundations 1.From Third Sector to Social Enterprise: A European Research Trajectory (Jacques Defourny) 2.The EMES Approach of social enterprise in a comparative perspective (Jacques Defourny and Marthe Nyssens) 3.Social enterprise and the Third Sector - Innovative service delivery or a non-capitalist economy? (Lars Hulgård) 4.Organizational variety in market economies and the emergent role of socially oriented enterprises (Carlo Borzaga, Sara Depedri and Ermanno Tortia) 5.The social and solidarity economy a theoretical and plural framework (Jean-Louis Laville) 6.Solidarity-based Initiatives: Field realities and analysis (Laurent Gardin) Section II: Social Enterprise, Governance and Policy Issues 7.Major perspectives on governance of social enterprise (Mike Aiken, Chris Cornforth, and Roger Spear) 8.Explaining stakeholder involvement in social enterprise governance through resources and legitimacy (Benjamin Huybrechts, Sybille Mertens, and Julie Rijpens) 9. Multi-stakeholder governance in social enterprise (Isabel Vidal) 10. The associative as governance structure (Bernard Enjolras) 11. European Work integration social enterprises: between social innovation and isomorphism (Marthe Nyssens) 12. Co-production and the Third Sector: the state of the art in research (Taco Brandsen, Victor Pestoff, and Bram Verschuere) 13.Hybridity, Innovation and the Third Sector: the co-production of public services (Victor Pestoff)