Co-operatives, not-for-profit and mutual benefits organizations as well as foundations share common values that colour the way they perform and how they manage to do so. Yet, little is known about how the social economy is actually being evaluated, and how evaluation may reinforce or weaken this specificity. This book fills a gap in the literature about the social economy. It seeks to make a critical assessment of today’s interests that the social economy must cater to and for which questions of evaluation appear to be the most telling.

A first set of contributions is made of four theoretical papers inspired by various disciplinary fields: management, economy, sociology, philosophy. A second set of contributions is composed of seven national analysis of how the social economy is evaluated in different institutional contexts: France, Québec (Canada), United Kingdom, United-States, Brazil, Portugal and Japan. The conclusion of the book summarizes the findings of this study and proposes some reflections addressed to policy designers, evaluation specialists and social economy actors.
 
Contents: Marie J. Bouchard: Introduction. The Worth of the Social Economy – Marie J. Bouchard: Methods and Indicators for Evaluating the Social Economy – Bernard Perret: Evaluating the Social Economy Clarifying Complex Rationality – Bernard Enjolras: The Public Policy Paradox. Normative Foundations of Social Economy and Public Policies: Which Consequences for Evaluation Strategies? – Bernard Eme: Miseries and Worth of the Evaluation of the Social and Solidarity-based Economy: for a Paradigm of Communicational Evaluation – Nadine Richez-Battesti/Hélène Trouvé/François Rousseau/Bernard Eme/Laurent Fraisse: Evaluating the Social and Solidarity-Based Economy in France Societal Balance Sheet-Social Utility and Identity Trial – Marie J. Bouchard: The Evaluation of the Social Economy in Quebec, with regard to Stakeholders, Mission and Organizational Identity – Roger Spear: Social Accounting and Social Audit in the UK – Charles Patrick Rock: Evaluating Nonprofit Organizations in the United States Welfare System – Maurício Serva/Carolina Andion/Lucila Campos/Erika Onozato: Evaluation of the Social Economy in Brazil: an Analysis of the Practices in some NGOs – Isabel Nicolau/Ana Simaens: The Evaluation of Social Solidarity Organizations in the  Portuguese Context – Akira Kurimoto: Evaluation of Co-operative Performances and Specificities in Japan – Marie J. Bouchard/Nadine Richez-Battesti: Conclusions.
 
CIRIEC (International Centre of Research and Information on the Public, Social and Cooperative Economy) is a non-governmental international scientific organization. Its objectives are to undertake and promote the collection of information, scientific research, and the publication of works on economic sectors and activities oriented towards the service of the general and collective interest
 
Marie J. Bouchard is a professor at Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) where she is the director of the Canada Research Chair on the Social Economy and a member of the Centre de recherche sur les innovations socials (CRISES). She acted as the coordinator of the CIRIEC International Working Group on Methods and Indicators for Evaluating the Social Economy.