Ins tu onal de elo ment o microcredit in India has been in uenced by lobal ressures, interins tu onal contradic ons, and intrains tu onal con icts in lo ics. he hybrid model used in India o en created dissonance amon ins tu ons that o erated or a common cause with com etin lo ics. Lo ics clashed and di erences in their le i macy and sustainability status resulted in mission dri , in a or o the dominant ins tu onal actor. Desi n issues in social enter rises can result in ailed alliances e en when a rowin mar et e ists and has acilitated e erimenta on or years.

PurposeSocial entrepreneurship is gaining increased attention from academia and practitioners worldwide. Owing to its financing challenges, academic pedagogies are seeking methods to strengthen the social financing dimension of this emerging discipline. This paper bridges the gap in social entrepreneurship education by portraying diverse perspectives on this topic from multiple actors in two cross-cultural contexts.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative case analysis was conducted to explore financing aspects of social entrepreneurship in France and the United States. The authors interviewed academicians and practitioners to learn about their current experiments and thoughts on integrating finance into the curriculum for social entrepreneurship.FindingsThe authors found multiple facets of the social entrepreneurship finance construct, focused not only on specific financial skills but also on a general approach to venture designs. Multidisciplinary knowledge is sought not just on the topic of finance but also in other disciplines that can broaden its scope of financing to a larger investor domain. While in France, this came out as a need for integrating the financial communication skills to personify the social value creation process; in the US, it was pointed out as the need for having a contractual knowledge to differentiate investment opportunities and comprehend their risks levels.Originality/valueBy bringing perspectives from multiple actors who have had experience in social entrepreneurship financing in regions with the fastest development, this paper is seminal in bridging the financing skill gaps that exist in social entrepreneurship discipline. The main theoretical contribution of this article concerns the skills, financial and otherwise that are useful in social finance.

Social entrepreneurship literature is silent on what governs social enterprises’ (SE) financing decisions in contexts where there are no clear legal distinctions between social and commercial enterprises. Using a qualitative multiple case study approach, this research explores how social entrepreneurs decide their financial strategies and evaluate investors in such contexts where such blurred boundaries exist. The case study of nine Indian SEs operating in emerging sectors of health, education, and agriculture reveals social entrepreneurs’ perspectives on SE financing and practical dilemmas faced when moving beyond donation is considered. Our findings present that the organizational factors governing their financing strategy and due diligence criteria used for investor evaluation reflect the social entrepreneur’s value-based lens of self-conceptualizing their own vision of ‘What is a Social Enterprise’ in their financial decisions. Though this does not adhere to popular capital structure theories used in commercial finance, it conforms with Hambrick and Mason’s Upper Echelons Theory, which states that organizations reflect their top executive’s values and belief in their decisions. We observe in our study that self-discretion and value expression is a contextual necessity for social entrepreneurs operating in emerging sectors where there are no clear legal distinctions in organizational forms or theoretical directives on financing decisions.

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