The starting premise of this paper is that business models can transform social reality—sometimes to an extreme. Then, building on the concept of "grand challenges," we argue that such ...transformations can be either positive or negative in nature (or both)—even in the case of business models designed to improve value not only economically but environmentally and socially as well. To further our understanding of the negative aspects, we introduced two conceptual categories of business model: those for oppression or depletion and exclusionary ones. We further argue that bringing the notion of grand challenges center-stage highlights four elements that can contribute to emerging research and inform practice on transformational business models. These elements are: participatory forms of architecture; multivocal inscriptions; scaffolding; and proximity (understood as a caring concern for the "other"). They are central components of what we name transformational business models.
In many developing countries those living in poverty are unable to participate in markets due to the weakness or complete absence of supportive institutions. This study examines in microcosm such ...institutional voids and illustrates the activities of an entrepreneurial actor in rural Bangladesh aimed at addressing them. The findings enable us to better understand why institutional voids originate and to unpack institutional processes in a setting characterized by extreme resource constraints and an institutional fabric that is rich but often at odds with market development. We depict the crafting of new institutional arrangements as an ongoing process of bricolage and unveil its political nature as well as its potentially negative consequences.
Much effort goes into building markets as a tool for economic and social development; those pursuing or promoting market building, however, often overlook that in too many places social exclusion and ...poverty prevent many, especially women, from participating in and accessing markets. Building on data from rural Bangladesh and analyzing the work of a prominent intermediary organization, we uncover institutional voids as the source of market exclusion and identify two sets of activities—redefining market architecture and legitimating new actors—as critical for building inclusive markets. We expose voids as analytical spaces and illustrate how they result from conflict and contradiction among institutional bits and pieces from local political, community, and religious spheres. Our findings put forward a perspective on market building that highlights the on-the-ground dynamics and attends to the institutions at play, to their consequences, and to a more diverse set of inhabitants of institutions.
This article aims to shed light on how ‘powerless’ people can organize to survive in situations of mass oppression. Research on powerlessness often explains compliance and political inaction by a ...culture of silence, generated from the sedimentation of numerous experiences of defeat. We question this assertion by drawing from an illustration of certain inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto, who managed to create a micro-society and reclaim the social relations the Nazis sought to destroy. Building on the work of Schaffer, we explain these collective ethics of resistance as the view that people should actively participate in the creation and maintenance of their own social relations. Through this lens, we argue that ethics and resistance are intertwined.
In recent years there has been an outburst of studies aiming to advance our understanding of how actors do work to create, maintain and disrupt institutions. Drawing on work on the Holocaust, a ...largely neglected event in organization theory, we explore types of institutional work through which actors first maintain domination and grant acquiescence to oppression and, second, target oppressive systems through acts of resistance. This approach offers an opportunity to study a familiar set of processes and phenomena on fresh terms and to focus on key elements that existing studies on institutional work have neglected.
Prior research has shown that human trafficking has multiple facets and is deeply enmeshed in societies around the world. Two central challenges for anti-trafficking organizations pertain to ...confronting systemic injustices and establishing caring organizations for survivors to start the process of healing and restoration. Analyzing the work of an anti-trafficking organization, International Sanctuary (ISanctuary) in Mumbai, we seek to elucidate how a space for caring for trafficking survivors is constructed in a largely non-egalitarian and unjust context. We contribute to discussions on how caring infrastructures are possibly developed so that they do not write off (pre)existing gendered and in-egalitarian social structures and how they shape individual biographies. We also highlight how the specific, situated context—defined by those very structures—shapes and influences the transformative potential of care interventions.
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