Economía social y solidaria en el sector de la construcción

Abstract

The Ecuadorian Constitution establishes a social and solidarity-based economic system, backed by regulations and institutions that seek to strengthen this model. However, the capitalism reflected in the market economy has caused the marginalization of certain popular economic units (PEUs) that do not have the opportunity to access better productive conditions and financing for their activities. Nevertheless, the Social and Solidarity-based Economy (SSE) is an alternative development approach to offer goods and services, based on cooperation, solidarity and reciprocity, all this within the framework of associativity. After the bibliographic review on the subject, the objective of the research was to propose SSE’s strategies to improve the construction PEU’s conditions, considering that it is a very dynamic sector at national and local level. For this purpose a stratified random sampling was carried out and surveys were applied to 114 PEU. In addition, semi-structured interviews were performed to key actors, based on an intentional sample of those informants with greater representation in the city of Cuenca. The result of the research allowed to know the main characteristics of the construction PEU, and to explore its surroundings based on the speeches of its actors. In this way, it was possible to determine the limiting factors related to its Environment and Production, and the enhancing factors such as those related to its management capacity. Some strategic lines were suggested so that they can work in an associative way with a common goal, determined by themselves.