Prosociality in business: a human empowerment framework

This study introduces a human empowerment framework to better understand why some businesses are more socially oriented than others in their policies and activities. Building on Welzel’s theory of emancipation, we argue that human empowerment—comprised of four components: action resources, emancipative values, social movement activity, and civic entitlements—enables, motivates, and entitles individuals to pursue social goals for their businesses. Using a sample of over 15,000 entrepreneurs from 43 countries, we report strong empirical evidence for two ecological effects of the framework components on prosociality. We find that human empowerment (1) lifts entrepreneurs’ willingness to choose a social orientation for their business, and (2) reinforces the gender effect on prosociality in business activity. We discuss the human empowerment framework’s added value in understanding how modernization processes fully leverage the potential of social business activities for societies

Crowdfunding Prospects in New Emerging Markets: The Cases of India and Bangladesh

Crowdfunding is a viable approach to financing start-ups and supporting social causes in advanced economies. The World Bank estimates a vast potential for crowdfunding also in emerging markets. The South Asia region consists of predominantly collectivist societies where helping others through donations is an integral part of prevailing religious obligations and societal norms. Thus, these countries share certain cultural and religious traits that are highly consistent with the principles of crowdfunding. In the current chapter, we explore the history, ongoing activity, and future prospects of crowdfunding in new emerging markets, specifically, India and Bangladesh. We observe that India is largely dominating the crowdfunding activity in the region, which is otherwise limited