Purpose – Empowerment of women by social enterprises in emerging economies has received attention from researchers. This paper aims to study three social enterprises in India that aim to empower subsistence women entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach – A comparative case analysis of three social enterprises is done to develop understanding of systems and processes adopted by them. Sources such as published journal and news articles, case studies, success stories and official websites are used for data collection. Findings – The study found that all three organisations strive to increase the asset base of members by organizing disempowered subsistence producers lacking market power; extending services throughout the value chain, i.e. from raw material supply to marketing of products; ploughing back regular incomes and bonuses through mechanisms acceptable to all members; and empowering subsistence producers to gain market power and ability to choose. The interventions give market exposure and voice to the concerns of women producers. These organisations successfully leverage the strength of their relations with civil society and markets in sustaining the business. Women empowerment was found to be achieved through regular income, collective voice, ability to take decisions and creation of social value. Research limitations/implications – This paper does not take into consideration enterprises promoted by government. Practical implications – A conceptual framework is suggested in this paper along with insights for organisations interested in collectivising subsistence women for empowering them. Originality/value – The conceptual framework provided in this paper enriches the understanding of social enterprises working with the objective of women empowerment.

Introduction

Correcting the harm done by an unjust equilibrium is the motivating force for a social entrepreneur (Martin and Osberg, 2007). This is because economic development can be driven by entrepreneurship (Anokhin et al., 2008, p. 117), as it acts as an engine of growth (Holcombe 1998, p. 60). Economic development can be possible with employment opportunities, promotion of innovation and welfare that can be enabled by entrepreneurship (Acs et al., 2008, p. 219). A social entrepreneur works with the goal of developing sustainable advantages and solutions with empowerment as a building block (Santos, 2012). Social entrepreneurship is an innovation process unfolding in various institutional contexts. With value creation at its base, social entrepreneurship can be a befitting approach to address modern society’s problems (Santos, 2012). It can also be seen as a process promoting various combinations of resources and their innovative usage with the aim to pursue opportunities that catalyse social change (Mair and Marti, 2006, p. 37). It enables new model creation which is aimed at serving the unsatisfied basic human needs by existing economic or social institutions. Thus, social enterprises focus on improving systems and creating solutions with new approaches to problems that were left untouched by others. The objective of social enterprise is social value creation, which may result in economic value creation as well. This view is taken, as customers of social enterprises cannot pay for products and services in spite of their willingness to do so (Seelos and Mair, 2005). Poverty in rural areas and urban slums of India presents continuous challenges to people interested in implementing development interventions. While struggling with poverty, many poor people from rural or urban context take up menial entrepreneurial activities that come under the informal economy (Viswanathan et al., 2014). Women who constitute a significant half of this population continue to face the social prejudice in all these activities, and most importantly in production and market transactions. Because of this reason they get exploited more than the male members of their community and remain disempowered and poor.