Social entrepreneurship as a new business model. The case of refugee integration

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the definition of the new ‘buzzword’ of Social Business in general, as well as to analyse its contribution to the refugee integration and touch upon their challenges and barriers they encounter. In the past few years, Austria has witnessed a massive increase in the number of asylum-seeking refugees, which has sparked a heated debate about the methods of their integration process. Politicians have proposed several measures, still problems such as social inclusion or effective and targeted integration into the labor market have remained untouched. In order to answer the research questions, this study applies the qualitative method and is based on both primary and secondary data. The data is gathered from 10 interviews of social businesses in the field of refugee integration in Austria. Based upon this finding, it is of the utmost importance that social businesses garner the attention of the government and policies which should support their creation and development.