Institutionalizing social entrepreneurship in the Global South: How intermediaries work around the indigenous solidarity economy in Colombia

Addisu A. Lashitew and Eugenia Rosca

Research Policy, 2025, vol. 54, issue 7

Abstract: Existing research on sustainability transitions has primarily focused on technological change within national innovation systems, often overlooking social change and global interdependencies. This study examines the emergence of social entrepreneurship as a global sustainability niche that offers an alternative institutional rationality to the prevailing commercial entrepreneurship regime. We introduce a framework that depicts how sustainability transitions unfold across regional subsystems, where intermediaries connecting the Global North and South facilitate niche transfer through institution-building initiatives. Applying the framework to Colombia, we examine how intermediaries from the Global North shape the institutionalization of social entrepreneurship in the Global South along regulative, cognitive, and normative domains. The results reveal how an inchoate institutional environment enables well-resourced Northern intermediaries to play an outsized role in shaping local institutions. Power asymmetries and limited downward accountability reduce the reflexivity of intermediaries leading institutionalization processes, creating tensions with the country's indigenous solidarity economy organizations. The study contributes to the literature on sustainability transitions by unravelling the promises and challenges of foreign-led institutionalization of sustainability niches in the Global South.

Keywords: Social entrepreneurship; Sustainability transition; Institutional intermediaries; Global South; Colombia; Solidarity economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733325000976
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:54:y:2025:i:7:s0048733325000976

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2025.105268

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by Anna Bergek, PhD, Alex Coad, PhD, Maryann Feldman, Elisa Giuliani, Adam B. Jaffe, Martin Kenney, Keun Lee, PhD, Ben Martin, MA, MSc, Kazuyuki Motohashi, Paul Nightingale, Ammon Salter, Maria Savona, Reinhilde Veugelers and John Walsh

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().