The context for the professional insertion of people under social
exclusion risk has undertaken substantial changes during the last
twenty years. These circumstances have strongly conditioned both the
needs and the opportunities of social entities, which not always have
been capable to carry out the necessary transformations. Based on the
foundations from the Public Economy, the Social Economy, Political
Science and Sociology this paper brings in the perspective of Business
Economy and Organisation Theory to the innovation process carried
out by social entrepreneurs seeking new organisational formulae to
approach the therapeutical treatment and the social integration of
excluded people. This innovation process has produced some effective
outcomes such as the Social Enterprise, and the Social Insertion
Enterprise, each of them responding to different therapeutical, social
and economic purposes