Abstract
Research increasingly examines how institutional voids impact social enterprises (SEs) in developing countries. Despite the growing number of social entrepreneurs in India, largely owing to increased awareness and policy reforms, significant gaps persist due to weak enforcement of regulations, limited financial support, inconsistent labour supply, and the often unaffordability of sustainable products/services. Drawing on interviews with founders of sixteen social enterprises and informed by Khanna and Palepu (1997) and Stephan et al. (2025), the paper examines how institutional voids manifest in the context of Indian social enterprises and how these organisations navigate them. The study finds that responses to institutional voids are determined by social entrepreneurs' perceptions of their organisation’s raison d'être. For those who believe they are entrepreneurs with a purpose, the response is underpinned by a professional approach to the business. However, entrepreneurs who keep their purpose motive ahead of financial sustainability tend to focus on informal workarounds and nurturing of inter-organisational relationships (Sydow et al., 2022)