Scaling Social Impact: Building Sustainable Social Ventures at the Base-of-the-Pyramid

Abstract

This paper examines the process through which ventures scale their social impact in base-of-the-pyramid communities. A careful review of extant literature reveals two distinct modes of scaling social impact – breadth and depth scale. Drawing on a longitudinal study of Naandi and Drishtee – two exemplary social ventures in rural India – it is suggested that the depth and breadth scale develop through different processes. Each venture dynamically balances a minimum critical specification of social innovation, affordability, and market penetration while scaling social impact. We chart this path to scale in the two social ventures, and find that the relationship between minimum critical specifications and social impact is mediated by contrasting approaches to resource mobilization, operating routines, and entrepreneurial adjustment. The findings suggest that the process of scaling social impact can be characterized by a punctuated equilibrium model of system change.

Key Words:

• Scale
• social impact
• emerging economies
• process model
• social entrepreneurship

Acknowledgements

The authors express their sincere gratitude to Satyan Mishra, Amit Jain, and the teams at Drishtee and Naandi. The authors acknowledge the Skoll Foundation's generous support of the GSBI to advance the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Satter Conference on Social Entrepreneurship in New York, the C.K. Prahalad Legacy conference in San Diego, and the Research Colloquium on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford. The authors thank conference organizers and participants for their helpful suggestions as well as the reviewers for their constructive insights.