The number of Non-for profit (NPOs) organizations is significantly increased in recent years (International Co-operative Alliance1, 2016). The increase concerns the number of paid workers (about 681 thousand), the volunteers (about 4,7 millions) and the services provided (health services, education, commercial services and social development etc.) (Carini, Borzaga, 2015). A great variety of organisations, classified under the non-profit sector, exists in Italy: political parties, trade unions, churches, foundations, hospitals managed by religious orders, community care, museums, volunteer groups, professional centres and social cooperatives. Because of the complexity and the diversity of non-profit organizations, we focus our attention on evaluating the performance of social cooperative enterprises with regard to their specific purposes. Nowadays, there are about 301,191 non-profit organisations (NPOs), contributing in the amount of 3.3% to Italian GDP, of which79,487 are active co-operative businesses (International Co-operative Alliance, 2016) and about 11,264 are social cooperatives (ISTAT, 2011). The law 381/1991 adopted by Italian Parliament distinguishes between two types of social cooperatives: those providing social, health and educational services (identifiable in typology A), and those providing work integration for disadvantage people and supplying other services, such as agricultural and commerce services, as well as general services (identifiable in typology B). The mission of these enterprises is to create social value, by stimulating social change or meeting social needs, in order to promote cultural wealth and socio-economic development. The necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve the social mission is that social cooperatives undertake activities that are economically sustainable in the long-term. […]
Key-Words: Aziende non profit
