Proceedings of International Social Sciences and Business Research Conference
4 - 5 December 2014, Hotel Himalaya, Kathmandu, Nepal, ISBN: 978-1-922069-65-8
Locating Social Enterprises in Development Praxis and Nepal:
A Literature Review
Rojee Joshi
Social enterprise is seen as a potential development strategy in the long history of
development praxis. This paper provides an overview of relevant literature related to
social enterprise to situate it in the context of the history of development.
This paper will outline the history of SE linking it to neo-liberal principles and the
interplay of market forces. A brief history of social enterprises within development
history and its theoretical roots will be presented. In addition to these concepts, the
research paper then attempts to provide a glimpse of SE works in Nepal.
The paper will illustrate that Social enterprise is proliferating in South Asian Countries,
including Nepal. In Nepal, the concept of SE in itself is not a new phenomenon
because of its social practices like Guthi, a social cooperation established for social
and religious causes. However, the trend is gaining momentum through the effort of
socially motivated leaders out of the learning experience from the western countries
and motivated by country’s poor governance to make contribution to social equity,
find better ways in competing resources and private sectors looking for investment
that brings social returns. The new social leaders are paying an important role in
promoting the concept by bringing the concept into public attention and by
establishing a network between the social entrepreneurs and their supporters.
The paper also illustrates that the financing modality of the social enterprises like that
of other south eastern countries, if it should follow philanthropic mode of funding or
impact financing is also not clear in Nepal. Moreover, as the culture of social
enterprise are linked to not for profit organizations and civil society organizations
historically, looking at the size of NGO sector in Nepal, it is likely that more social
enterprises will emerge in future in the country.
This paper acknowledges the entrepreneurial and innovative work done by various
development organizations (NGOs, Government, volunteer organizations etc) over the
past several years. In addition to this, the research paper focuses on the questions of
sustainability, programme effectives of the organizations, thus growth and up scaling
of the organizational work.
The research was carried out for about a year mostly by using online search process
with no language restrictions utilizing an electronic databases and covers most
articles and publications between the period of 2003 and 2013.
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Rojee Joshi, Faculty of Arts and Education (Development Studies), Melbourne Campus, 115 Victoria
Parade, FITZROY 3065, Tel: +61 03 9953 3206; 0414844345 (mobile).
Uni e-mail: Rojee.Joshi@acu.edu.au