Ricerc@Sapienza

The growing interest in the financial, social and environmental sustainability of all organizations as a whole, as well as the growing sentiment for their responsibility towards the community, lead organizations to face the challenge of evaluating and communicating their non-financial performance through the social accounting. The issue assumes a peculiar meaning within social enterprises (SEs) aimed at pursuing the general interest.

The relation between partial distribution of earnings and development of social enterprises is a topic that has been debated in a small number of studies over the years. The first aim of this paper is to analyze the potential impact that the partial removal of the non-distribution constraint foreseen by the ltalian thlrd sector reform could generate on the Italian social enterprises, especially in which ways il could affect the choices of the social enterprises on quality or efficiency of their production.