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Institutional Theory as a Framework for Practitioners of Social Entrepreneurship

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Social Innovation

Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

Abstract

The chapter proposes institutional theory as a framework for reflecting on social entrepreneurship. We advocate institutional theory as a tool for practitioners to reflect upon the legitimacy, survivability and scalability of social enterprises because institutional theory frameworks can reduce risks associated with emerging fields such as social entrepreneurship. In order to illustrate our claim, we present four cases of social entrepreneurship and reflect on them through different institutional theory frameworks. At the end of the chapter, we propose a future agenda for practitioners interested in social entrepreneurship from an institutional theory perspective.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Grameen Bank Performance Indicators & Ratio Analysis, December 2011 http://www.grameen-info.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=632&Itemid=664

  2. 2.

    SKS: Our Work: What We Do: Our Products. SKS: Our Work: What We Do: Our Products (http://www.sksindia.com/our_products.php)

  3. 3.

    Initial public offer is a market mechanism to raise capital from the market by selling stake of the company. Market values the company based on future cash flow probabilities.

  4. 4.

    Acumen Fund http://www.acumenfund.org/about-us/financial-information.html

  5. 5.

    Clinton Global Initiative (2010). Special Session: Profiting from the Poor? A Discussion on Microfinance IPOs, Clinton Global Initiative.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for CSR, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Anirudh Agrawal & Kai Hockerts

Authors
  1. Anirudh Agrawal
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  2. Kai Hockerts
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anirudh Agrawal .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Intel Corp., Dornacher Str. 1, Feldkirchen, 85622, Bayern, Germany

    Thomas Osburg

  2. Centre for Humane Market Economy, Schlossallee 9, Puch, 5412, Austria

    René Schmidpeter

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Agrawal, A., Hockerts, K. (2013). Institutional Theory as a Framework for Practitioners of Social Entrepreneurship. In: Osburg, T., Schmidpeter, R. (eds) Social Innovation. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36540-9_11

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