Boosting growth through Social Business: a state's or a market's function - The case of Albania

• Author: Arlinda Ymeraj
• Position: European University of Tirana
• Pages: 49-58

49

ISSN 2410-759X

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

Balkan Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania Vol. 1 No. 3

January 2016

Boosting growth through Social Business: a state’s or a market’s function

– The case of Albania

Arlinda Ymeraj

European University of Tirana

Abstract

The radical nature and rapid pace of change in the former communist countries has

unleashed new forces for both positive and negative change, particularly in the fields of

economic growth and social development. New approaches to commerce and service

delivery are thus forcing us to challenge some of our conventional theories on the state,

society and the economy.

This paper tackles the government’s role on finding ways to harmonize economic growth

with social policies. While states struggle to take on the fiscal burden of supporting their

most vulnerable citizens, societies such as Albania have paid witness to a dramatic

growth in resources in a fledgling private sector. However, “economic activity often

operates in a binary rather detached and isolated from both public sector and civil

society. The brutal and predatory individualism encountered in many enterprises is in

sharp conflict with the social interests of the state and society at large”(Zamagni, 1997).

A shift in thinking on social policy foresees the emergence of a social capital approach to

social exclusion. This approach involves the mobilization of the entire community-

including business actors and civil society leaders-in tackling social exclusion and

empowering disadvantaged members of society.

The social business model, as developed in Albania in the creation of the Youth Albanian

Parcel Service (YAPS), which employs exclusively disadvantaged youth, is an innovative

example of new thinking on tackling social exclusion and reducing poverty. It promotes

the novel concept of using efficiency and in-built sustainability of free markets to generate

social wealth.

Social business is beginning to be seen as relevant by the public sector and the not-for –

profit sector as well as the private sector. As a matter of fact, people are looking for a clear

lead and articulated objectives and priorities from the government. It is a general view,

inherited from the past that government has a role in signposting organizations to tools

and giving direct advice through business links. State has a range of possibilities to

intervene, using different channels. It may play a triple role. These three roles are

inextricably linked as they reflect the new political, social and economic order in which

we live and secondly because they determine a new, post-communist relationship

between citizen and state.

Keywords: Social business, state’s role, civil society, industrial conflict, social welfare,

social responsibility, social protection and inclusion, social exclusion.

Introduction

The greatest challenge of Eastern and Central European countries is the social

reform. The western literature has, at times, been tempted, and still may be, to

consider income distribution in the former communist countries as an advantage

of the system, assuming that equitable distribution was based on egalitarianism for

all members of the society. Besides the Marxist theory, this viewpoint was also