Students will be able to:
Critically evaluate Knowledge Resource Enabled Trade Organization’s (KRETO) strategic options for a social enterprise operating under resource and institutional constraints.
Analyze stakeholder dynamics and pain points using engagement frameworks to design context-appropriate partnership and negotiation strategies in rural settings.
Analyze the role of institutional and gendered structures in shaping entrepreneurial opportunity.
Design an alternative business model that integrates social impact with financial sustainability in agri-based enterprises.
Shabeena Sultana, founder of the KRETO, rose from a modest background to establish a social enterprise committed to empowering women through economic inclusion and trade literacy. Since its incorporation in 2021, KRETO has convened international forums, mentored women entrepreneurs and mobilized over ₹1.2 crore in rural investments by 2023. Inspired by a personal encounter with a former domestic worker who was skilled in sericulture, Shabeena envisions setting up a silk-rearing venture in Basaralu, Karnataka – a project that promises rural employment but is constrained by systemic challenges including entrenched gender norms, limited land access, capital shortages and an approaching subsidy deadline tied to land acquisition.
With KRETO’s board pressing for a fully costed plan or reallocation of resources, Shabeena faces a strategic crossroads. Lacking support from traditional financiers and resistant landowners, she considers alternatives such as leasing land through women’s self-help groups or deferring the project. The case invites students to critically evaluate the feasibility of social entrepreneurship in resource-constrained, gender-biased environments and to address the central dilemma: Should Shabeena pivot or persevere?
This case is designed for postgraduate management students (MBA, MSW or MA Development Studies) and executive programs focusing on Social Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management or Gender and Leadership. In a Social Entrepreneurship course, it fits within modules on entrepreneurial ecosystems and inclusive rural development, allowing students to apply Institutional Theory (Scott, 2014) to analyze barriers, and Feminist Entrepreneurship Theory (Brush et al., 2009) to assess how gendered structures shape opportunity. In a Strategic Management course, the case is most relevant to modules on innovation strategy and stakeholder engagement, where students can apply the Stakeholder Salience Model (Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997) to prioritize actors and use Effectuation Theory (Sarasvathy, 2001) alongside the Social Business Model Canvas to evaluate pivot versus persevere decisions. By this stage, students would have already encountered these frameworks conceptually, and the KRETO case challenges them to integrate theory with practice in a context-sensitive decision-making scenario that bridges conceptual understanding with strategic execution.
CSS3: Entrepreneurship.
