Le capital social dans l'économie sociale d'insertion

In the present article, we try to show that social capital can prove to be an interesting analytical tool in the field of the social economy, and more specifically within the theoretical corpus developed by the European EMES Network on social enterprise. Our analysis is based on three specific characteristics of social enterprises. First, the forms of social capital within these organisations mainly consist of networks and the social relations they develop in their environment. But social enterprises also mobilise and produce important norms and values. Secondly, for social enterprises, the mobilisation and production of social capital can constitute a goal in itself. Lastly, social enterprises mobilise resources of very diverse natures (private or public, commercial or non-commercial etc.); social capital is one of these resources (volunteer work, participation of workers, trust etc.). On the basis of these hypotheses, we comment the results obtained in Belgium about the social and economic performance of workintegration social enterprises.