Social enterprise as political work: perspectives from the Global South

The political work of social enterprises is often neglected in the ‘West; and is almost completely ignored in the ‘Global South’ where it is assumed social enterprises fill institutional voids––operating in areas where governments and markets are broken. Stimulated by calls for more studies on the political work of social enterprises and our initial discovery of cases that exhibit this aspect of social enterprises operating in the Global South, we conducted an inductive study of nine social enterprises from the Global South. We found that social enterprises in the Global South, similar to those in the west, engage in different forms of paradoxical political work––simultaneously working outside of and with governments, while also critiquing policy. Notably, however, the tactics they employ tend to be more subtle and less visible to the western eye. Our study makes a new contribution to better understand how social enterprises engage with government in different ways to achieve their goals.