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Cultivating Women Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of SEWA

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Social Entrepreneurship and Gandhian Thoughts in the Post-COVID World

Part of the book series: India Studies in Business and Economics ((ISBE))

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between social entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment. The extant literature views social entrepreneurship as a solution to poverty and gender inequalities and discusses how social enterprises empower women by developing their skills and capabilities in emerging economies. Notwithstanding the important contribution, the theoretical foundations of these studies largely remain Western-centric and are limited in providing novel insights on the motivation, function, and impact of entrepreneurial activities. We extend this research by exploring the work of a social organization in India, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and by delineating the Gandhian principles that guide its mission, organizational structure, and implementation process. We show how the theoretical underpinning of SEWA in Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence and dignity of labor has enabled it to design holistic programs that focus on “Women, Work and Peace.” We elaborate on the implications of these principles for building equitable, resilient communities during a crisis such as covid-19.

The poor do not need charity; they need an enabling mechanism to strive and come out of the vicious circle of poverty and vulnerability.

Ela Bhatt, Founder of SEWA

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are mixed findings about family well-being, as entrepreneurial initiatives by women in developing countries have been found to lead to tension within the family, and at times increase in domestic violence (Ahmed, 2005; Rahman, 1999).

  2. 2.

    We acknowledge the critique of Prahalad’s notion of bottom of the pyramid (Karnani, 2007; Qureshi et al., 2021d, endnote 1), and it is not our intention to see marginalized context as potential opportunity to make profit. We believe that marginalized communities, if provided opportunities to develop capabilities through using their indigenous knowledge and locale resources, can generate their own livelihoods and truly represent the foundation (base) of humanity. The focus of the base-of-the-pyramid initiatives should be to empowering these marginalized communities (Bhatt et al., 2021; Escobedo et al., 2021; Hota et al., 2019, 2021; Parth et al., 2021; Pandey et al., 2021; Parthiban et al., 2020a, b, 2021; Pillai et al., 2021a, b; Qiu et al., 2021; Qureshi et al., 2016, 2017, 2018b, 2021b, c; Riaz & Qureshi, 2017; Zainuddin et al., 2022).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK

    Arpita Ghatak

  2. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

    Aftab Alam

  3. Research School of Management, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Israr Qureshi

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  1. Arpita Ghatak
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  2. Aftab Alam
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  3. Israr Qureshi
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Correspondence to Arpita Ghatak .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Management, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Babita Bhatt

  2. Research School of Management, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Israr Qureshi

  3. Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Dhirendra Mani Shukla

  4. Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Vinay Pillai

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Ghatak, A., Alam, A., Qureshi, I. (2023). Cultivating Women Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of SEWA. In: Bhatt, B., Qureshi, I., Shukla, D.M., Pillai, V. (eds) Social Entrepreneurship and Gandhian Thoughts in the Post-COVID World. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4008-0_12

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