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The aim of this paper is to investigate whether social innovation has taken root in the last two decades in the social economy sector of the Principality of Asturias (Spain) as a key enterprise development factor in the current post-crisis environment derived from successive financial, health and geopolitical crises. For this, it is conceptually defined, firstly, what is understood by social innovation and its basic dimensions, reflecting on the extent to which the social economy sector can be considered as socially innovative. After that, the methodology and the main results of a study carried out through a review of specialized literature and a qualitative analysis through in-depth interviews with a sample of 21 heads of social enterprise, institutions or corporate entities linked to the sector in Asturias are presented. These results show how, indeed, the principles of social innovation are beginning to be adopted by the sector, albeit in an incipient way as a consequence of different weaknesses associated with its degree of entrepreneurship, organizational structure and development strategy. The paper ends by suggesting a series of recommendations that could contribute to the promotion of the sector as a whole and of the enterprises that make it up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities play a crucial role in the development of a society's entrepreneurial spirit. Among the different vehicular entrepreneurship alternatives, there is one with unique characteristics that is the cooperative. However, very few of the new companies created in the university environment are cooperatives, entities promoted by public institutions because they constitute an effective tool for entrepreneurship that places the individual at the centre of its structure to combine economic and social interests. This paper analyses the presence of cooperativism in the academic and entrepreneurial reality of the public universities of Andalusia, one of the regions with more entrepreneurs, university students, and where cooperativism has been most promoted by political institutions. To this end, we analyse the academic offer of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at nine Andalusian public universities and conduct in-depth interviews with the heads and technical staff of the entrepreneurship services at these universities, using inductive and qualitative methodologies. The results show a scarce and improvable presence of cooperativism in the curricula of the analysed degrees, as well as a management by the entrepreneurship services not directly oriented towards collective initiatives or, therefore, towards cooperativism, of which there is also a clear understanding of cooperativism. This means that potential university entrepreneurs are previously unaware of both the cooperative model and cooperative values and principles. In view of this situation, a comprehensive plan is proposed based on the interaction of university entrepreneurship services with the teaching staff and institutions that encourage and promote cooperativism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]