This paper highlights and traces the development of South Korea’s social economy in recent decades and provides an overview on how Korea conceptualises its social economy, and what role it plays in public policy as an innovative approach to solve the nation’s socio-economic problems. With globalisation and the neo-liberalisation of Korea’s economy, socio-economic problems grew prevalent and the social economy was identified as a novel and efficient way to address many of these issues in Korea. This emergence of the social economy attracted the attention of the Korean government whom at current juncture, are involved in the development of this new economy. As such, much of the emphasis of this paper is placed on public policy developments specific to the social economy in Korea, the impact of these social economy policies, and the issues and challenges it faces.