This article describes and analyses some of the features that characterize a new kind of social enterprise that has appeared in Argentina over the last few years, in response to the social questions that have affected the country. Within the scope of this article, social enterprise refers to any private activity that is conducted by some form of organizational management that seeks to benefit a collective interest. Its principal objective is not to obtain the highest possible profit but rather the fulfillment of both economic and social objectives as well as providing innovative solutions to the questions of social exclusion and unemployment, through the production of goods and services.
The initial part of the paper offers a brief overview of the appearance of these various organizational experiences at different historical moments in Argentina, specifically in the context of the crisis experimented in the country between 1998 and 2002. The second part deals with one particular form of social enterprise known in Argentina as, Recuperated Companies (enterprises recovered and managed by their workers).