Social entrepreneurship and values work: The role of practices in shaping values and negotiating change

© 2020 The AuthorsPrior research on social entrepreneurship highlights the role and importance of values in managing change, yet few studies examine processes of managing values to achieve social change. Through a longitudinal case study of the social organization Barefoot College, we explored how a social entrepreneur navigated conflicting values to address issues of gender inequality and effect social change. We found that the social entrepreneur engaged in values-related work, purposively interpreting and enacting values-laden practices to bring about a quiet transformation within the community. In our resulting value augmentation model, we capture a process that anchors and amplifies social values, rather than replaces them, and with this model, we develop theory on values work and sustainable social change.