Social Entrepreneurship Policy in Korea, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany, 2024

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Policy Review (EEPR), 12(2) · January 2025

This report reviews the social entrepreneurship policy that the governments of Korea, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany set out from January to December 2024 in six domains — regulation and law, finance, culture, support, human capital and markets — and analyses it in its context, against theory and in practice. Support was least secure where it rested on annual budgets: Korea abolished direct support for social enterprises, France cut its budget action for the social and solidarity economy during the year, and Germany’s draft budget would cut its title for common-good-oriented enterprises, while the United States kept funding its community development lenders. Dormant money, public lending and work integration were the strongest measures; legal reform concerned charitable and cooperative forms rather than social enterprise, public purchasing was the least realised lever, and culture was the thinnest domain. Governments changed in the United Kingdom, Japan and France, Germany’s coalition broke up, and much of the year’s policy was pending or was to take effect only from 2025.