Research Seminar – Marya Becharov

Professor of Organisations and Impact and Academic Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Said Business School, Oxford University

Professor Becharov will present a paper co-authored with Meng Zhao

Title: The intra-organizational dynamics of social innovation adaptation: Grameen Bank goes to China

Abstract: A central challenge for organizations seeking to scale social innovations involves “adaptation fidelity”—tailoring innovations to heterogenous contexts without compromising core principles. Because employees often disagree over whether and how innovations should be changed, intra-organizational dynamics likely shape the emergence and spread of adaptation fidelity, but this process remains poorly understood as existing work has focused on the role of external stakeholder engagement. Our qualitative, inductive case study of implementing the Grameen Bank microcredit model in China unpacks the intra-organizational dynamics of adaptation fidelity. Facing implementation challenges, many employees engaged in “expedient adaptation”, abandoning prescribed practices in order to quickly enlist borrowers. In contrast, a few engaged in “principled adaptation”, creatively adjusting prescribed practices while preserving the Grameen principle of developing social capital. As expedient adaptation spread and precipitated a crisis, principled adapters enlisted the founder, converted colleagues, and formalized their approach, ultimately enabling the organization to achieve adaptation fidelity and scale the Grameen model across China. Building on these findings, we develop a process model explaining adaptation fidelity as an emergent outcome of interdependent, reinforcing loops involving varying forms of adaptation, with implications for research on social innovation and systems perspectives in organization theory.