Review of International Comparative Management Volume 15, Issue 5, December 2014 613 The Social Enterprise - Viable Mechanism of Social Integration for Romanian Vulnerable Groups Ştefan Gabriel BURCEA 1 Keywords: Social enterprises, social economy, social inclusion, vulnerable groups, work insertion social enterprises, local development JEL classification: I30, J01, L31 1. Introduction During the past two decades, Romania underwent a period of profound transformations, which radically altered the general social development profile and which determined a shift in the overall vision of social sustainment methods of the social sector; thus the issue of reformulating the defining coordinates of social protection was acutely raised. The social economy entities can prove their utility especially in small communities, where the success of the intervention is tightly connected with the 1 Ştefan Gabriel BURCEA, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, e-mail:stefan.burcea@maa.ase.ro Abstract The social economy organizations and especially the work insertion social enterprises prove to be viable instruments for revitalizing the local economies undergoing difficulties. Due to the limited capacity of the communities in the underprivileged areas to generate income and the inability to activate endogenous development processes and create jobs, social economy is regarded as a component of the community development process. The article handles the issue of social economy organizations, focusing on the social insertion enterprises as the main mechanisms for increasing the employment within vulnerable persons. Starting from the analysis of the social economy contribution to the implementation of the European social policy, the author reviews the social insertion means, forms and models of vulnerable persons currently existing on national and international level. The research entailed the use of an indirect observation by analyzing the specialized Romanian and foreign literature and by analyzing various official documents available at variosus non-governmental organizations and European research institutes and networks, interested and involved in the wide and various range of problems related to the management of social enterprises.