A conceptual model of critical success factors for Indian social enterprises

Purpose - There has been global upsurges in the social enterprise (SE) research and practice considering SE as a rapidly growing thought worldwide. The renewed significance of SEs has arisen primarily on account of their assumed potential in solving a range of social problems. The evidences supporting the budding role of SEs in fostering sustained socio-economic development of regions and communities across the globe are evolving continuously. Even though, social entrepreneurship (S-ENT) and SEs have remained central thought provoking domains in the realm of scholarly investigation for the past couple of decades, the emerging literature on SEs and their role in economic development is riddled with theoretical inconsistencies and definitional controversies. Thus, very little is known about functioning and management of SEs. For the sake of advancing the field, the purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the critical success factors (CSFs) of SEs operating in different social settings in India. Further, a conceptual model is developed incorporating different factors of SE operation in an integrated framework. Design/methodology/approach - Based on the review of the extant literature, three categories of success factors comprising a total of 38 success factors for SEs were initially identified. Under each category, the success factors were then classified and reduced to appropriate numbers based upon their importance to SEs and their repeated manifestations in the literature, making a total of 13 CSFs under all three categories. Based on these three categories of CSFs, a conceptual model was developed. Findings - The study determines 13 critical factors as contributing to the success of SEs: business planning skills; entrepreneurship orientation; leadership; networking; innovative financing; triple bottom line planning; SE marketing; community engagement; human capital; organizational culture; social impact evaluation; frugal innovation; and government support. Originality/value - The paper presents a theoretical research model incorporating factors and determinants of SE success to direct a future research agenda. The paper can further be used by researchers to empirically test CSF of SEs. Moreover, practitioners can also gain benefits from the conceptual framework and promote S-ENT.