Abstract
The concepts of social enterprise and social economy over the last decade begin to appear in different contexts. The ability of the social economy and its stakeholders - social enterprises - innovative responses to social needs leads to the fact that its importance is growing worldwide.
Social enterprises gaining economic importance, especially the employment of persons experiencing difficulties in finding work on the open labor market - social enterprises for work integration. In the Czech environment, we continue the tradition of solidarity associations and cooperatives.
The social economy and social enterprises exist even though they are not legally or formally identified. For spreading the ideas of social economy and launching investigations start from Europe's initiatives that highlight business opportunities for everyone.
In this paper we introduce the methodology used by the research team of the Department of Civil Society Studies, Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague, Czech to identify social enterprises.