McLaughlin, Eoin and Pecchenino, Rowena (2021) Financial Inclusion with Hybrid Organizational Forms: Microfinance, Philanthropy, and the Poor Law in Ireland, c. 1836–1845. Enterprise & Society. pp. 1-34. ISSN 1467-2227

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Abstract

The turbulent 1830s saw a sequence of great political and social reforms in the United Kingdom. One such reform was the introduction of a locally funded Poor Law in Ireland. The development of a nascent welfare system in 1838 coincided with a boom in the formation of microfinance institutions in Ireland. The focus of this study is the expansion of a hybrid organizational form, Loan Fund Societies (LFSs), in the ten years prior to the Great Irish Famine of 1845–1849. LFSs were legally established with a conflictual structure: acting as commercially viable charitable institutions required to provide credit to the deserving poor (to enable them to be self-sufficient) while dedicating their “profits” to supporting the indigent poor. This study uses an analytical framework drawing inspiration from institutional logics to explore and better understand Irish microfinance in the early nineteenth century, a period of profound socioeconomic and socioreligious changes. It seeks to explain the factors that motivated the establishment and de-establishment of microfinance institutions amid this tumult. Legislative changes in LFS business parameters in 1843 made the tensions between being charitable and commercially sustainable salient; and, for some, it made continued existence untenable

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Cite as: McLaughlin, E. & Pecchenino, R.A. 2020, Financial inclusion with hybrid organisational forms: Microfinance, philanthropy, and the poor law in Ireland, c. 1836-1845, Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH), Belfast.
Keywords:	microfinance; institutional logics; development; Ireland;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics, Finance and Accounting
Item ID:	17509
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2020.67
Depositing User:	Prof. Rowena Pecchenino
Date Deposited:	07 Sep 2023 11:11
Journal or Publication Title:	Enterprise & Society
Publisher:	Cambridge Press
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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