engleski

War veteran entrepreneurship: Veterans' cooperatives in Croatia

War veterans constitute a marginalized group that is affected by both civilization and war aspects. This paper intends to research and describe Croatian defenders from the Homeland War - war veteran population in Croatia, as a special social group entering for various reasons the world of entrepreneurship. So the paper contains the content analysis of primary and secondary sources and defines the terms “social entrepreneurship, “social entrepreneur” and “social enterprise”, as well as the term “war veteran”, “cooperatives” and “veterans’ cooperatives”. It also presents the basic features of war veteran entrepreneurship in general, government support programs and examples of good practice both in Croatia and worldwide. Empirical research of 20 war veteran cooperatives, as the most developed form of entrepreneurship among Croatian war veterans, provides an insight into the structure of the war veterans who joined the cooperatives and their needs, the cooperatives as beneficiary of the Croatian war veteran incentive program and the supporting institutions at their disposal. According to the results of the research, Croatia has a sound care and incentive scheme for war veteran entrepreneurship, which needs to be redirected from predominantly non-recurring financial incentives towards the development of different profiled programs of entrepreneurial education, training, advisory and mentorship.

social entrepreneurship; veterans; veteran entrepreneurship; cooperatives; self-employment

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