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Journal of Business Ethics
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics 2/2020

17-08-2018 | Original Paper

Inclusive Business at the Base of the Pyramid: The Role of Embeddedness for Enabling Social Innovations

Authors: Addisu A. Lashitew, Lydia Bals, Rob van Tulder

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 2/2020

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Abstract

Inclusive businesses that combine profit making with social impact are claimed to hold the potential for poverty alleviation while also creating new entrepreneurial and innovation opportunities. Current research, however, offers little insight on the processes through which for-profit business organizations introduce social innovations that can profitably create social impact. To understand how social innovations emerge and become sustained in business organizations, we studied a telecom firm in Kenya that successfully extended financial services across the country through a number of mobile banking innovations. Our qualitative analysis revealed the strong role of being embedded in local networks and structures for initiating and implementing social innovations. Strong embeddedness enhanced the pragmatic and ethical imperative for internalizing social issues, but also provided access to diverse resources for implementing and legitimizing social innovations. However, hybridization processes that emphasized social issues introduced organizational tensions by increasing goal diversity and requiring adapting organizational processes and structures. The case shows how developing a mission-driven identity enabled the sustenance of social innovations by providing a meta-narrative that bridged goal diversities and rationalized organizational change.
previous article Evaluating the Double Bottom-Line of Social Banking in an Emerging Country: How Efficient are Public Banks in Supporting Priority and Non-priority Sectors in India?
next article Employee Volunteer Programs are Associated with Firm-Level Benefits and CEO Incentives: Data on the Ethical Dilemma of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities

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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Innovations that create social value have also been referred to by other names such as ‘inclusive innovation’, ‘below-the-radar innovation’, ‘frugal innovation’ and ‘sustainable innovation’ (Prahalad 2004; Simanis and Hart 2009; Hart 2005).
 
2
Apart from Kenya, M-Pesa is presently in use in Tanzania, South Africa, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Mozambique, Romania, Albania and India.
 
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Metadata
Title
Inclusive Business at the Base of the Pyramid: The Role of Embeddedness for Enabling Social Innovations
Authors
Addisu A. Lashitew
Lydia Bals
Rob van Tulder
Publication date
17-08-2018
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 2/2020
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3995-y

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