Role of Institutions in Promoting Value Creation in Social Enterprises in India

Abstract

Despite significant spending in the form of charity and philanthropy across the globe and in India, mass poverty is still prevalent, therefore, there is a need for an alternate, more efficient service delivery mechanism in the Social Sector. Social Enterprises are emerging to fill that void. These Social Enterprises have a social mission and operate in the continuum between for-profit and not-for-profit organisations with the dual objective of creating social and economic values through their work. Like any other firm, social enterprises operate in an institutional framework and constantly interact with them. Various institutions that interact with the social enterprise and form its ecosystem are Government, Academia, Financial Institutions, Non-profit Organisation, and Investors; where they try to influence the social enterprise as well as each other. This study emerged from curiosity about how institutions promote and support the emergence and growth of social enterprises and their role in this process. A detailed literature review established that a study that dives deeper into Institutional support for social enterprises in the various stages of enterprise life is yet to be attempted. More often, specific institutional support, like financial institutions, has been studied in depth. Therefore, the need for an exploratory research design emerged. A conceptual framework was developed by taking inputs from the available literature. Thus, by following a qualitative research methodology and using multiple embedded case designs, this research explored ten social enterprises from India representing various ages and sectors. Within each enterprise, a maximum of two institutions were also studied in depth for the way they support social enterprises.