Measurement of Sustainability of Social Enterprises and Implications for Inclusive Growth: An Emerging Economy Perspective

Project: HDR ProjectPhD

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Description

Since the world adopted the Sustainable Development Agenda, the core 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e., the global goals with 169 associated targets, are at the center of every country's policy agenda, with the goal of "count the uncounted" by providing opportunities, no poverty and inequality, planet protection, and bringing peace and prosperity to everyone, i.e., inclusive growth. In this regard, Social Enterprises (SEs) internalize these objectives in a coherent and integrated way by offering a variety of goods and services ranging from education, nutrition, healthcare, housing, clean water, sanitation, and human rights to a very diverse range of socio-economic inclusion. Therefore, SE's pursuit of sustainability is essential to deliver socio-economic impact and inclusiveness to marginalized societies consistently, i.e., the self-sustaining SEs can significantly lead to inclusive growth. Insofar as the sustainability measurement frameworks are concerned, literature presents various sustainability measurement frameworks for industries, economies, and businesses but lacks in presenting SEs specific sustainability framework. In addition, the literature brings no empirical evidence in estimating the impact of sustainable SEs. Therefore, significantly, this research answer two research questions, a) what are the critical elements of SE's sustainability, and b) what is the impact of sustainable SEs on inclusive growth? Consequently, the study's novelty lies in phase one, developing and measuring SE's sustainability framework encompassing multi-dimensional sustainability, i.e., social, economic, environmental, and political. Whereas phase two of this study endeavors to estimate the impact of Sustainable SEs in bringing inclusive growth in an emerging economy, Pakistan. Employing multi-method research and collecting data through structured questionnaires would lead to conclusions. Finally, SEs sustainability measurement framework entails the identification of the relevant indicators devised in SE's sustainability measurement framework, which help-policy makers develop policy to support SE's practices. Furthermore, SE's sustainability index provides new directions for SEs to expand their scope to cover an extensive range of targets that further assist in evaluating their sustainability in social, economic, environmental, and political domains.

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