How hybrids manage growth and social–business tensions in global supply chains: the case of impact sourcing

This study contributes to the growing interest in how hybrid organizations manage paradoxical social–business tensions. Our empirical case is ‘‘impact sourcing’’— hybrids in global supply chains that hire staff from disadvantaged communities to provide services to business clients. We identify two major growth orientations— ‘‘community-focused’’ and ‘‘client-focused’’ growth—their inherent tensions and ways that hybrids manage them. The former favors slow growth and manages tensions through highly integrated client and community relations; the latter promotes faster growth and manages client and community relations separately. Both growth orientations address social–business tensions in particular ways, but also create latent constraints that manifest when entrepreneurial aspirations conflict with the current growth path. In presenting and discussing our findings, we introduce preempting management practices of tensions, and the importance of geographic embeddedness and distance to the paradox literature

Institutional entrepreneurship, governance, and poverty: Insights from emergency medical response servicesin India

We present an in-depth case study of GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute, an Indian public–private partnership (PPP), which successfully brought emergency medical response to remote and urban settings. Drawing insights from the case, we investigate how the organization established itself through institutional entrepreneurship using a process conceptualized as opportunity framing, entrenchment, and propagation. The case and context highlight the need for innovation in organizational design and governance modes to create a new opportunity that connects state actors, private healthcare providers, and the public at large. We consider the role of open innovation and novel business models in creating these service platforms. The implications of our findings for the literature on PPPs, institutional entrepreneurship, inclusive and open innovation, and organizational design in base of the pyramid contexts are discussed

The opportunity not taken: The occupational identity of entrepreneurs in contexts of poverty

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. Innovative entrepreneurship is an essential but often missing outcome of poverty alleviation efforts. This qualitative study set in rural Ghana explores the occupational identity of entrepreneurs, the institutions that shape it in isolated “island networks” and how it influences entrepreneurs’ practices and decisions. We find that the institutional forces of “collectivism” and “fatalism” feature prominently. Being an entrepreneur in such settings means being a mentor, market link, and community safety net, and the types of opportunities entrepreneurs pursue are largely seen as pre-destined and inherited rather than individually chosen. As a result, the pursuit of innovative opportunities may be significantly limited

Scaling Impact: Template Development and Replication at the Base of the Pyramid

In recent years, management scholars and practitioners have been advocating a more prominent role for business in economic and social development at the “Base of the Pyramid” (BoP) where more than a billion people subsist on less than two dollars a day. Yet, in both theory and practice, the development of financially sustainable and scalable business solutions for the BoP has been challenging. By integrating insights from the emerging BoP literature with extant research on the replication of organizational routines and templates, this study examines how the distinctive conditions of the BoP affect the development and replication of scalable business solutions for the world’s poor. In particular, we identify key distinctive conditions of the BoP and develop an organizing framework on the mechanisms that facilitate the development and replication of viable and scalable business templates there. Our analysis contributes to BoP research by advancing understanding of the role of templates in economic and social development at the BoP as well as to research on the replication of organizational routines and templates by delineating the distinctive conditions and mechanisms that affect the development and replication of templates at the BoP.Peer reviewe

Legitimacy and Institutional Governance Infrastructure: Understanding Political Risk from a Chinese MNE Perspective

While the political risk associated with Chinese multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) international expansion has generated considerable interest, little attention has been paid to whether Chinese firms’ perceived level of political risk in host countries can be explained by the conventional analytical framework focusing on host-country governance infrastructure, and what determines their perceived level of risk in international markets. Drawing insights from the neo-institutional theory, this chapter examines Chinese MNEs’ legitimacy in host countries and how it can shape their perceived level of political risk. Using survey data, we found that while host-country institutional governance infrastructure remains important in explaining firms’ perceived political risk, their effect diminishes when considering host-country stakeholders’ legitimacy judgement. Our findings highlight the need to conceptualize political risk from emerging economy MNEs’ perspective

Social Entrepreneurship and Scaling Strategies for Poverty Alleviation

Social Entrepreneurship for Poverty Alleviation In the last decades, governments, NGOs, policymakers, academics, and large corporations are increasing the attention on powerful mechanisms to alleviate poverty. In fact, being recognized as one of the leading SDGs by United Nations, poverty still represent a worldwide grand challenge, which comprise almost half the world\u2019s population. A recent research from BoP innovation center (2020) estimated that around 4.5 billion people globally live in the so-called base of the pyramid (BoP). The base of the pyramid include a vast population which face differences in the degree of poverty ranging from extreme poverty conditions (with households\u2019 daily incomes of 1 USD) (Sachs 2006; World Bank 2018) to lessconstrained conditions with 8 USD per day in some more developed countries (Alkire et al. 2014). Notably, worldwide this population represent a huge market for addressing the basic need of the poor, as water, electricity, consumer goods, and health care so that many institutions and profit companies are trying to address this market to help people to eradicate poverty, thereby generating a \u201cfortune\u201d for the organization with a huge untapped market (Prahalad and Hammond 2002; London and Hart 2004; Prahalad 2009). Despite the many approaches from governments and nonprofit institutions, a valuable approach has been recognized in businesses which can represent a powerful force toward poverty alleviation and eradication (Bruton et al. 2013; Dembek et al. 2020; Sutter et al. 2019)