Purpose This paper aims to identify and categorise the values expressed in women-led social entrepreneurship based on a typology of universal values. It explores the influence of gender and religious faith on the values that inspire social entrepreneurial organisations to engage in positive social change. Design/methodology/approach Inductive multiple case study research investigates the values manifest in five social entrepreneurial organisations founded and led by women in three Southeast Asian countries. Findings Organisations and their women-leaders express values related to benevolence, universalism, self-direction and security. Gender and religious faith are found to be mediators that influence approaches to social transformation. Research limitations/implications Purposive sampling and interpretive research design favour rich description but limit the generalisability of the findings. Further enquiry is needed into the gender-values-religion nexus in social entrepreneurship. Practical implications Social entrepreneurship is shown to be a process embedded in and motivated by prosocial values of benevolence and social justice and other values of self-direction and security. Findings provide evidence for the critical but often overlooked influence of gender and religious faith on the values foundation of social entrepreneurship. Social implications Social entrepreneurial organisations led by women contribute to positive social change through the values they incorporate and express. Originality/value Research on the link between gender, values and religious faith in social entrepreneurship is virtually non-existent.

This paper develops a model that advances our understanding of how social enterprises respond to the complexity of a constellation of multiple, often competing goals, referred to here as institutional logics. Introducing a religious logic to the recognised social welfare and commercial logics of social enterprise, this model builds on a religious worldview foundation and incorporates religion-inspired altruistic love and non-transactional giving as its scaffolding. A comparative case study of faith-based, faith-inspired and secular organisations located in Southeast Asia demonstrates the origin and applicability of the model. Findings highlight that religion serves as an overarching logic, or “metalogic”, and frame of reference. Faith-based social enterprises use this religious logic to redefine perceived paradoxical tensions between the social welfare and commercial objectives they embody. Study results advance knowledge on organisational responses to multiple logic prescriptions, underscores the influence of religion, altruistic love and giving on organisational behaviour and contributes to the scarce literature on faith-based social enterprises.