Institutional Logics and the Double Bottom Line: A Study of Chikum Microfinance Bank Limited

Abstract

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) serve a social mission, while also having to focus on financial sustainability. Microfinance emerged as an alternative to traditional aid to the poor and aims to help alleviate poverty through providing them with financial services. MFIs can be self-sustainable and even profitable through income generating activities. This twin goal of commercial viability and social mission has generated much scholarly interest in the competition between two seemingly incompatible logics of action. Assumptions about the incompatibility of profit and mission motives have dominated the literature and led to a neglect of how some MFIs may be successful in integrating both logics. This study elaborates on the specific actions and processes Chikum MFB Ltd,-a microfinance bank located in Owerri, Nigeria took to balance 'nonprofit' and 'for-profit'