Social Enterprise and Sustainable Development in Thailand: A Conceptual Framework, Integrative Literature Review, and Theoretical Propositions
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Abstract
Although social enterprise has gained increasing recognition as a mechanism for driving sustainable development, theoretical understanding within the Thai context remains significantly underdeveloped. This article synthesizes 30 works drawn from international and Thai sources, published between 2020 and 2025, to address this gap. The findings indicate that Thai social enterprises play a prominent role in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals relating to decent work and gender equality, with women leading 59 percent of Thai social enterprises. At the same time, the sector faces three structural risks, namely mission drift, state retreat, and co-optation by capitalist logic. The article proposes an analytical framework tailored to the Thai context, a four-tiered typology of organizations based on institutional funding sources, and five theoretical propositions derived from triangulation, together with two novel concepts synthesized from Thai case studies, namely market premiumization as mission protection and embedding within high-legitimacy institutions. Both concepts are ready for empirical testing and can serve as a basis for future policy formulation.
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