Retaining the nonprofit mission: The case of social enterprise emergence in India from a traditional nonprofit

ABSTRACT

Literature examining the emergence of social enterprises from traditional non-profits has noted a shift in organizational mission, from a predominantly social mission towards a dual focus on both social and commercial goals. Less is known about how such social enterprises, which transition from traditional non-profits, retain the original non-profit social mission. The present study, employing an institutional logics perspective, identifies how a social enterprise, emerging from a traditional non-profit in India, re-conceptualized its means in diverse ways towards a common social end, preserved its core guiding principles and processes, and maintained a broad organizational vision, to seamlessly retain and continue with the original social mission. The study concludes with implications for social enterprise and institutional logics research.

KEYWORDS:

• Social enterprises
• traditional non-profits
• institutional logics
• social mission
• India

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their guidance and encouragement during the review process. I would also like to thank Mukta Kulkarni for her feedback and insightful comments on the past versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. For the present study, I use the conceptualization of social welfare and commercial logics consistent with the works of Pache and Chowdhury (2012) and Pache and Santos (2013). Please see Table 1 for a comparison of the two logics.

2. Seven distinct institutional logics have been identified at the societal level, namely, community, corporation, family, market, profession, religion, and state (Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury 2012). The institutional logics at the field, organization, and individual levels are drawn from these seven societal level logics.

3. Please refer to Table 1 for a distinction between these two logics.

4. The names of the co-founders have been not used in this study (barring within actual quotes) in order to maintain anonymity.

5. Appendix 1 provides the abbreviations and full forms of the programme names.

6. This programme has been recently renamed as ‘Dignity for Work’, see https://goonj.org/our-initiatives/.

7. A rickshaw is a three wheeled for-hire tricycle used to ferry passengers.

8. Rahat in Hindi means relief.

9. A nallah is a drainage pipe to take out waste water from bathrooms, or kitchens.