Organisational Responses to Social-Business Tensions in Social Entrepreneuring: Findings from the Scaling up of an Affordable Housing Finance Firm in India

Elisabeth Niendorf, Karin Kreutzer and Amit Karna

Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 245-273

Abstract: The scaling up of a social enterprise is a dynamic process that often involves tensions resulting from the divergent social and business logics inherently present in social enterprises. We analysed extensive data covering a period of more than 10 years’ journey of an affordable housing finance organisation in India. We identify four phases of the scaling up process of the venture and highlight three areas where the social-business tensions arise in: (i) human resources, (ii) organising and (iii) investor expectations. Our process model illustrates how the organisation developed different responses to mitigate these tensions in different phases and avoid mission drift. These responses include prioritising the social side, half-hearted balancing, accepting growth limitation and anticipating social-business tensions.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/19420676.2022.2152858

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