Social Entrepreneurship in Non-munificent Institutional Environments and Implications for Institutional Work: Insights from China

Babita Bhatt, Israr Qureshi*, Suhaib Riaz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

98 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We investigate the research question: Why are there very few social enterprises in China? Our findings unpack four types of institutional challenges to social entrepreneurship, as perceived by social entrepreneurs: norms of a strong role for government; misunderstood or unknown role for social enterprises; non-supportive rules and regulations; and lack of socio-cultural values and beliefs in support of social goals. We contribute to the literature on social enterprises by showing how an institutional environment may be “non-munificent,” i.e., non-supportive for the existence of social enterprises and their goals, and we thus address the need for more attention to the institutional environment in which social entrepreneurship takes place. Further, by using Q-methodology on 42 social entrepreneurs along with illustrative qualitative data from interviews, we address the need to go beyond anecdotal case studies and introduce methodological plurality in social entrepreneurship research. Finally, our findings on institutional challenges provide us with an opportunity to discuss how social entrepreneurs may engage with purposive activities to overcome such challenges, leading us to initiate a conversation between the social entrepreneurship and institutional work literatures.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)605-630
Number of pages26
JournalJournal of Business Ethics
Volume154
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Feb 2019
Externally publishedYes

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