The Entrepreneurship Process of Nonprofit Organizations Developing Base-of-the-Pyramid Ventures

Finding effective solutions for tackling poverty, social injustice and exclusion -- all of which affects some four billion people the world over -- is no trivial matter. This research advances our understanding of entrepreneurship by exploring a particular type of entrepreneurial behavior in nonprofit organizations (NPOs): the pursuit of economic and social gains building market ventures that engage the otherwise excluded poor. How does a not-for-profit organization build a profitable undertaking? How does it strike a balance between delivering services to beneficiaries and generating economic resources under market rules? Based on a study of the processes followed by eight NPOs, we advance propositions on five elements that distinguish the entrepreneurial process involved in social ventures engaging the poor through market mechanisms from that of commercial ventures.