Abstract

A vibrant line of research on microfinance has emerged at the intersection of management and organization theory. This research broadly addresses two sets of questions: first, what types of challenges and opportunities emerge from the combination of financial and social goals that microfinance exemplifies? And second, how does the “macro” embeddedness of such “social enterprises” shape and constrain their behavior as they craft responses to these pressures? As one of the most pervasive and controversial forms of social enterprise, microfinance has been eagerly studied and serves as the empirical setting for many of the most influential pieces on social enterprise in the management literature.