Public defence: Yashoda Karki

Yashoda Karki will defend her PhD degree in Management. The dissertation explains the process of how social enterprises use digital technologies to promote sustainable development by creating social, economic, and environmental value to society.

07 Oct

Practical information

  • Date: 7 October 2025
  • Time: 10.00 - 15.00
  • Location: Drammen, Auditorium A5508 and Zoom
  • Download calendar file

    • Join digitally (Zoom)
     

    Program 

    Kl 10.00. Trial lecture: The concept ‘digital social enterprise’ and its overlaps with and distinctions from the concept ‘social enterprise’

    Kl 12.00. Public defence: «Digitalization and Sustainable Development in the context of Digital Social Enterprises: An Affordance Based Institutional Logics Perspective.»

    Assessment committee 

    • First opponent: Professor Annika Andersson, Örebro University, Sweden
    • Second opponent: Associate professor Johan Ivar Sæbø, University of Oslo
    • Administrator: Associate professor Erlend Aas Gulbrandsen, USN School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway

    Supervisors

    • Principal Supervisor: Professor Karen Stendal,  USN School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway 
    • Co-supervisor: Professor Therese Dille, USN School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway 
Any questions?

Yashoda Karki is defending her thesis for the degree philosophiae doctor (PhD) at the University of South-Eastern Norway.

The doctoral work has been carried out at the USN School of Business in the program Management.

You are invited to follow the trial lecture and the public defence.

Summary

The dissertation explains how digital social enterprises (DSEs) – socially driven organizations that use digital technologies in their core activities – play a crucial role in linking digitalization and sustainable development.

By studying DSEs in Nepal, this research shows how these enterprises create positive impact across social, economic, and environmental dimensions by leveraging digital technologies to address societal challenges.yashoda karki - photo

One key finding from this research is that DSEs use digital technologies not just for operational efficiency, but to generate positive value across the triple bottom lines of people, planet, and profit.

These organizations perceive and actualize several digital affordances – action possibilities offered by digital technology – which help them deliver positive impact directed towards sustainable development. The process of using digital technologies is complex and iterative and is shaped by both challenges and facilitating conditions in the local context.

Another key finding is that DSEs’ activities are guided by their dominant institutional logics of creating social welfare, commercial value, and environmental protection.

In this scenario, digitalization acts as an enabler to these institutional logics, helping DSEs to balance competing priorities and stay focused in their common goal of addressing various societal problems.

These findings reveal that digitalization, when guided by sustainability principles, can be a powerful tool for development.

Building on this, the dissertation makes the following key contributions to research and practice:

  • A conceptual framework to explain the link between digitalization and sustainable development. The dissertation introduces a framework to explain the process of how digitalization and sustainable development are linked through the work of DSEs. This framework may guide policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to better understand how technology can be positively used.
     
  • Theoretical advancement. By combining the theory of affordances with institutional logics, this research offers a new lens to study how organizations navigate digital transformation while staying aligned with sustainability principles.
     
  • Defining DSEs. Through this dissertation, DSEs are conceptualized and defined as a distinct category, clarifying their role and value systems. This definition contributes to the broader understanding of social enterprises and their use of technology in addressing societal problems.

Practical implications

This research encourages social enterprises, governments, and practitioners to invest in digital strategies that are inclusive, purpose-driven, and environmentally conscious.

It shows that digitalization isn’t just about adopting new technologies, it’s about transforming how we solve complex societal problems.