Objective
There is arguably a lack of research on organizations with social goals in management. For an
extreme case, i.e. of poverty, Prahalad (2006) described compelling examples of innovative
organizations in South Asia, which he suggested served the poor. However, very little is known
about: 1) What factors ‘cause’ social organizations, for instance, in settings of extreme poverty, to
grow and scale up ‘successfully,’ and how and why?, and 2) What organizational factors influence
‘social performance’ for target groups, and how and why, and under which conditions (where and
when), and for whom? Building on insights from our earlier theoretical and empirical work on
networks, leadership, and learning, as well as our extensive pilot studies in India, we will explore
how and why social organizations grow and scale up, in relation to social outcomes for relevant
target groups, using mixed methods (a qualitative phase followed by a quantitative phase, to first
build and then test theory). We propose to study organizations in an extreme setting, where arguably,
social problems are worst: of poverty in South Asia, and picked the education sector given its
potential importance for enabling people to move out of poverty. We believe that a better
understanding of how and why organizations scale up successfully to enable target groups in poverty
to be more proactive is also relevant from a practical perspective. It is for instance at the heart of the
new Sustainable Development Goals, and it is our hope to make a contribution into this direction.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantHost institution
WC2A 2AE London
United Kingdom
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Beneficiaries (4)
WC2A 2AE London
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NW4 4BT London
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DH1 3LE Durham
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LS2 9JT Leeds
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