Social Entrepreneurship in India: Models and Application

The promise of social entrepreneurship in a country like India is enormous, as there are considerable variations concerning culture, societies, economies, and development achievements. Social entrepreneurship is one such leadership and organisational practice that can address the pressing socio-economic problems of India. The communities, corporations, government, civil society and individuals can all undertake social entrepreneurial practices to address India’s problems. The chapter discusses the different social enterprise models existing in India, and draws its inspiration from the work of Defourny and Nyssens on social enterprise (SE) models and typologies and applies them to the Indian context. It provides examples of concrete applications of the conceptual models in different fields of activity. Indian SEs following the entrepreneurial non-profit model operates as non-profit organisations, foundations, associations, non-governmental organisations or societies. The chapter concludes with a discussion about future opportunities for SE development in India.