While Japan has never had a specific legal form for the social enterprise, there has been substantial argument about this issue. Compared to western countries, the uniquely emergence of social enterprise notion in Japan has historical, contextual and conceptual background.
This paper will silhouette the contour of the social enterprise in Japan. What are their discussions mainly focusing on? How organizational form Japanese social enterprises have? What kind of activities carried out by social enterprises? How do they impact on community? What is the role of the public policies, financial institutions and citizens for development of the social enterprise sector? In order to answer those questions, we intend to light on the emergence of social enterprises and background to the argument about social enterprises beginning by consideration of historical contexts.