Putting Phronetic leadership in Action for Social Innovation: A Tale of Social Enterprises

Social enterprises envisioned to pool resources in order to meet the un-met societal needs of the marginalized community. The performance of social enterprises is usually considered as quantifiable reflected through number of projects, number of beneficiaries, loan return ratio, amount of donation etc. but the subjective measure needs to define in social context. Therefore, this study is intended to understand and explore the subjective meanings of phronesis of leaders and its role in the creation of social innovation that can ultimately lead towards economically and socially Superior Pakistan. Taking case study as qualitative research inquiry, semi-structured interviews and observations were used to explore the phenomenon of social innovation. Purposive sampling was used to select the 13 informants (board of directors and project heads) of Akhuwat foundation and Al-Khidmat (top two social enterprises of Pakistan). To analyse the data, Gioia methodology was used based on the socially constructed thoughts/views of knowledge agents. The results of the study expressed that leader of social enterprises employ his/her practical wisdom, virtue, prudence, and value judgment to address social phenomenon through innovative and sustainable solutions.