GENDERED BoP HYGIENE MARKETS IN RURAL INDIA: A CASE STUDY OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SOCIAL INNOVATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 51-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUKHPAL SINGH

Water scarcity and non-existent or poor sanitation have special implications for the poor in a rural context of a developing country such as India, especially in the case of women due to their personal hygiene needs. The penetration of sanitary napkins is very low in Indian villages for reasons such as the high cost of branded napkins, availability, and cultural barriers. Over 88% of rural women use unhygienic alternatives during menstruation, with 77% using a piece of old cloth and many others nothing at all. These practices lead to a deterioration in health of the mother as well as the child and, sometimes, the death of the mother. Furthermore, a large proportion of girls in India do not go to school during their menstruation period, for an average of 4–5 days every month, and at least 23% of girls drop out of school when they start menstruating. Adult women cut down on their productive day-to-day activities. Menstruating lower-income women also have to follow certain social exclusion norms and treat it as a purely private matter as it is considered a social taboo. The access to personal reproductive hygiene products and services thus becomes indispensable in terms of addressing hygiene and sanitation needs. Furthermore, this is more of a developmental/social venture rather than just pure rural marketing. This paper examines the issue from a social enterprise and social innovation perspective in order to understand the issues involved in changing the situation. It examines the case of a social venture in India (Goonj) which has attempted to deal with this market in terms of its approach, product design, market creation, performance, issues faced, and impact made. The paper attempts to infer lessons for making social entrepreneurship and social innovations work in developing country health and hygiene contexts in the form of a Bottom of Pyramid (BoP) market solution.

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (02) ◽  
pp. 255-277
Author(s):  
Shweta Mittal ◽  
Vishal Gupta ◽  
Manoj Motiani

The ‘Qasab’ case is designed to teach students about the characteristics of social entrepreneurship and the impact it has on the society. It also describes how sustainable development and social innovation are interlinked. ‘Qasab’ was an organization whose main focus was to preserve the traditional art of the Kutch region. The case describes the genesis and the journey of ‘Qasab,’ how it preserved the traditional art forms, and the personality traits of Pankaj Shah (the social entrepreneur who started ‘Qasab’). The case talks about the problems faced by the artisans in the region, which led to the formation of this social venture. Also, it touches upon the HR challenges faced by a social entrepreneur. At the time this case was written, ‘Qasab’ had become a collective enterprise comprising 1,200 rural master craftswomen from 11 ethnic communities spread across 62 villages in the arid interiors of Kutch and has been formally structured and registered as a ‘Producer Company’ owned by traditional craftswomen. ‘Qasab’ included different communities such as — ‘Mutwa’, ‘Sodha Rajput’, ‘Jat-Daneta’, ‘Meghwal’, ‘Sindhi Memon’, ‘DhebariyaRabari’, ‘KacchiRabari’, ‘Ahir’, ‘Halepotra’, ‘Sumra,’‘Hingorja’ and ‘Pathan’ — that had distinct embroidery styles and emphasized maintaining these styles (since the embroideries were an integral part of their cultural identity) — to preserve their unique identities. ‘Qasab’ was known for its outstanding quality of authentic Kutch embroidery, appliqué and patchwork products, its hallmark being traditional motifs reflecting the cultural identity of each community in contemporary designs through items of premium quality. ‘Qasab’ had made artisans stakeholders in the organization and was able to preserve the distinct art of each community. The case is based on the theme of social entrepreneurship and analyzes the process of the emergence of such enterprises, their importance and the factors that lead to their success and sustainability. Students can assess how these organizations are different from other types of organizations. The case should help students to find the parameters that show that social innovation and sustainable development are interlinked. The case can be used to study the business model of social innovation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-23
Author(s):  
Ruchi Jain ◽  
Anushree Tandon ◽  
Ruchi Khandelwal

Changes in business environments continually create opportunities for entrepreneurs to target specific emerging needs of their customers. The first disposable female urination device (FUD) PeeBuddy was launched in the Indian market in response to the emergent need among the urban women for a product facilitating safe usage of public washrooms, especially during travel. PeeBuddy is among the many social innovations (Alvord et al., 2004, p. 262), making prominent appearances in emerging economies battling resource constraints (Austin et al., 2006). The purpose of this case is to understand the ideation and execution of this social innovation in the context of countries like India where cultural traditions and subjective norms are held in high regards. In India, issues surrounding women’s personal hygiene are considered taboo for public communiqué. This case explores the use of social media marketing approaches used to circumvent extant cultural barriers hindering the adoption of PeeBuddy, which may be considered as a taboo product in the context of the Indian market. This case is aimed at students undertaking advanced marketing management and consumer behaviour courses to sensitize them about subjective norms and their deep integration within culturally dominated communities. It will establish the need for adopting innovative methods for marketing taboo products and how creativity can be used to retail such products.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bechir Fridhi

AbstractThis article aims to understand the extent to which social entrepreneurship (SE) contributes to the construction of a collective dimension linked to social innovation (SI). We aim to propose new ideas that can deliver insights into the SE phenomenon. This research is also distinct from entrepreneurial ecosystems as its development already requires some successful entrepreneurial action and to do it, the structuring and consolidation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem constitutes a real challenge for the development of SI.This work has been based on a participant observation of eight major events dedicated to social entrepreneurship or the shared economy. In-depth interviews with Tunisian social entrepreneurs were also conducted in order to enrich our corpus. The results show the necessary cooperation of social entrepreneurs for a sustainable and responsible social innovation. Indeed, the analysis emphasizes that the viability and sustainability of a social innovation rests essentially on a collective construction, beyond common social values.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7532
Author(s):  
Giuseppina Maria Cardella ◽  
Brizeida Raquel Hernández-Sánchez ◽  
Alcides Almeida Monteiro ◽  
José Carlos Sánchez-García

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an emerging research field that has received much scholarly attention in recent years. Given the global scope of this attention, this review explores the existing scientific literature on social entrepreneurship to contribute to a systematization of the research field. Based on the publications in Web of Science and Scopus, a total of 1425 scientific articles were analyzed. We used the bibliometric method to describe the evolution of social entrepreneurship research (e.g., evaluation by years, authors, scientific journal articles, and countries in the SE literature that have had the greatest impact in terms of production). In addition, we used the mapping of knowledge networks through the citations and co-citations analysis to identify schools of thought. A keyword co-occurrence analysis was performed to detect key research topics over the years. The results show that, although the research is still in a nascent phase, it has a multidisciplinary character. Furthermore, social entrepreneurship appears to be a concept closely linked to three schools of thought: commercial entrepreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship, and social innovation. The keywords analysis allowed us to isolate the constructs that the literature has considered antecedents (e.g., socio-psychological factors) and accelerators (e.g., education, network, culture, and gender) to the development of social entrepreneurial intention. We will further discuss the ways researchers can explore this research field and contribute to the global literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya

Purpose The purpose of this paper was to ascertain how social entrepreneurs were required to recognize their new ventures’ scope and scale of operations. The firm boundary was based upon two dimensions, namely, the scope of the offering and its scale. The objective of this research was to ascertain the thinking regarding this of social entrepreneurs engaged through technology-based social entrepreneurship (TBSE). Design/methodology/approach This study conducted an in-depth interview of 26 technology entrepreneurs engaged in social entrepreneurship ventures in India. The interview was carried out based upon a semi-structured open-ended questionnaire. This study undertook thematic and relational content analysis to develop a model of technology-based social entrepreneurs’ venture scoping and scaling. Findings This study found that the antecedent variables were the level of support perceived by social entrepreneur from government and at the industry level. Furthermore, the variables’ entrepreneurial and market orientation of social entrepreneurs were found to be the independent variables. These four variables in turn determined the explorative and exploitative horizon of the technology-based social entrepreneurs. Finally, an interplay of these variables ascertained the perspectives of social entrepreneurs engaged in TBSE regarding the notion of their firm’s scope and scale. Research limitations/implications The theoretical insights developed in this research study provided an integrated theoretical perspective accommodating both environmental perspectives (industry support and government support) and organizational perspectives (entrepreneurial and market aspects). This was in context of TBSE. Practical implications The insights from this research study could provide a robust and comprehensive understanding to social entrepreneurs regarding the strategic thinking towards scale and scope for a technology-based social venture. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study was one of the first theoretical works in TBSE towards scaling versus scoping perspectives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-62
Author(s):  
Muhammad Sazzad Hossain ◽  
Md Sirajul Islam ◽  
Sharmin Abbasi

Background: Pregnancy and childbirth related complications are the leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity in Bangladesh. An estimate shows that about 28,000 mothers die in each year in Bangladesh due to obstetric complications. The aim of this study was to find out the birth practice among rural women in Bangladesh.Material and Methods: This descriptive cross sectional study was carried out among 1220 respondents by purposive sampling technique from July 2016 to June 2017 in different Private Hospital, Dhaka. Data were collected by a structured questionnaire duly pretested through face to face interview. Data were analyzed manually and by using computer.Results: Then study revealed that majority of the respondents 80% were Muslims by religion and about 26% respondents were found within the age 25-29 years with mean age 31±7.59 years. Most of them 86% were literate and only 14% were found illiterate. Among the respondents 75% were Housewives and 11%, 9%, 1% and 4% were involved in Service, Business, Agriculture and others occupation respectively. Moreover, 78% respondents monthly income were less than TK 3000. About 43% & 16% respondents were found to have 2 & 3 children respectively. In this study, about 73% received antenatal visit and among them 57% received 1 to 3 antenatal visits and 74% received TT immunizations. It was found that 69%, 54% and 59% received antenatal advices on healthy diet, personal hygiene, drug use respectively. Home delivery and Hospital delivery practice were found among 44% & 56% respondents respectively. The reasons for home delivery like Feeling comfortable, Family decision and Financial problem were found in 60%, 26% & 42% respondents respectively. The most common complications during last delivery were obstructed labor, found among 39% respondents.Conclusion: Still now women prefer home delivery. Major reasons for home delivery were Feeling comfortable, Family decisions and Financial problems. Delivery conduction by qualified doctors were found only among 47% women. Efforts needed to increase maternal health related knowledge and awareness towards birth practice to facilitate decision in minimizing complications and mortality.Anwer Khan Modern Medical College Journal Vol. 9, No. 1: Jan 2018, P 57-62


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 1344-1361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Dufays

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify tensions that are emerging in the invention and implementation of social innovation by social entrepreneurial teams and highlights elements that influence the type of tension encountered. Design/methodology/approach Four cases are selected theoretically, studied individually, and compared to one another to identify tensions and patterns of tensions. Findings The findings reveal the predominant tensions related to goals and identity during social innovation invention and those related to time and knowledge during social innovation implementation. The size of the entrepreneurial team, the nature of the social innovation, and the interest orientation – that is, the overlap between entrepreneurial team members and beneficiaries – are found to play a role in the type of tensions encountered and their content. Research limitations/implications The chosen research approach limits the generalizability of the research results. Replication in other settings and with other types of social innovation is therefore encouraged. Originality/value In contrast to most existing studies, this research focuses on nascent social innovation projects borne by teams. It proposes that social-business tensions are not necessarily predominant in social innovation management. It suggests the importance of interest orientation as an underestimated factor in the study of social entrepreneurship.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (Number 1) ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
Shila Rani Das ◽  
Monowar Ahmad Tarafdar ◽  
Md. Saizuddin ◽  
Nadia Begum ◽  
Sultana Begum ◽  
...  

This cross sectional study of fifteen days’ duration was conducted among Married women attending in OPD at Dhamrai Dhaka to know Reproductive Health Practice of Married Women in the Rural Community with a sample size of 100 following purposive sampling technique using pretested semi-structured questionnaire by face to face interview method after taking informed consent. Data were analyzed manually and by using computer. Only 39% respondents were found within age group 20-30 years and 33% completed primary education. Majority the of respondents (79%) were married. This study also found that 39% were housewives and majority (56%) had poor monthly income (TK <10,000). Majority (78%) of respondent’s duration of married life less than or equal to 15 years. This study also revealed that (72%) respondents were found having their first issue less than or equal to 25 years of age. About 40% respondents were found having two children. About 47%, 52% & 25% respondents received advices on healthy diet, personal hygiene and cautions about drug uses respectively during antenatal period. Majority (84%) of respondents were done USG on their routine antenatal care investigation. About 65% respondents delivered their last issue at hospital among them 55% respondents last delivery conducted by qualified doctors. Majority (85%) respondent received TT immunization and 71% respondents were not faced any complication in last delivery and 53% respondents were suffering from problems related to reproductive system and among them abortion (35%), PPH (30%) and perineal tear (20%). Reproductive health practice was still worse among the rural community Effective strategies must be taken to improve reproductive health status of the rural women.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Calvet-Mir ◽  
Hug March

Throughout the 20th century, urban gardening in central and northern Europe as well as in North America has received a great deal of academic attention. However, the recent proliferation of urban gardening in other geographies, such as southern Europe in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2007–2008, remains underexplored. The economic crisis put on hold urban developments in many southern European cities, leaving idle plots of land waiting to be urbanized. The crisis also triggered radical political demands, such as those of the Indignados, as well as fuelling narratives revolving around social entrepreneurship and social innovation. Barcelona emerges as a laboratory of urban gardening initiatives in vacant lots mobilizing either radical urban demands or embedding new post-crisis rhetoric around social entrepreneurship. Through a combination of qualitative methods, including participant observation, a literature review, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and field diaries, we present a characterization and evolution of the three most prominent urban gardening initiatives in the city of Barcelona (including 54 gardens at the end of 2016): the Network of Municipal Gardens (municipally led gardens for retired people); the Network of Communitarian Gardens (social movements); and the Empty Plots Plan (social entrepreneurial urban gardening). Subsequently, we discuss the different meanings of gardening in crisis/post-crisis Barcelona as well as the urban politics that each initiative articulates. Our results show that urban gardens within the city are an expression of different and non-exclusive meanings that explicitly or implicitly, in a context of crisis and post-crisis, mobilize notions of political gardening.


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