Another stream limits the analysis to the field of social enterprises belonging to the third sector and includes social cooperatives (Nyssens & Kerlin, 2005). This understanding of social enterprise is being developed by university researchers and scholars cooperating in the EMES Research Network.2 The research effort is, among other things, establishing a social enterprise “ideal type” with the understanding that social enterprises not precisely adhering to the “ideal type” characteristics are still nonetheless included in the sphere of social enterprise. According to EMES the defining characteristics of the social enterprise “ideal type” include: