OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open-access peer-reviewed journal
https://doi.org/10.64211/oidaijsd190821
Entrepreneurship Program Leadership and Microenterprise Growth Within Sustainable Community Development Frameworks
Damodar Jena 1, Shipra Saxena *2, Priyanka Mishra *3, Chhayakanta Mishra 4, Rajkisbore Rout 5
1 KIIT School of Rural Management, KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751024, India.
2* KIIT School of Rural Management, KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751024, India.
3* KIIT School of Architecture and Planning, KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751024, India.
4 C-Edge Consulting Private Limited, C-Edge Consulting Private Limited, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751001, India.
5 KIIT School of Applied Sciences, KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751024, India.
* Corresponding authour: shipra.saxena2002@gmail.com and priyanka.mishrafar@kiit.ac.in
Volume 19, Issue 08, pg. 307-316, 2026.
Abstract: Despite being the lifeline of economic sustainability in the developing world, a large portion of microenterprises are in subsistence stagnation, surviving but unable to grow because they are isolated in their operations and lack strategic institutional support. Sustainable Community Development (SCD) models promote a multi-dimensional and holistic approach to development that ensures economic returns, social justice, and environmental protection. But the contribution of program leadership to shifting dependency on aid to scalable, self-reliant entrepreneurship is under-researched in the literature. This study fills this void by investigating the role of program leadership practices on the growth paths of microenterprises in the SCD paradigm, focusing on the role of sustaible development outcomes and their associated challenges and contributions. The research method used in this study is qualitative descriptive research. A total of 15 program directors and lead facilitators were purposively selected from a cross-section of organizational settings (such as NGOs, government agencies, and community cooperative bodies) working in Odisha, India, for semi-structured interviews. Thematic coding was used to analyze data from NVivo software, following a systematic three-stage approach of open, axial, and selective coding. Strategies to avoid bias were member-checking, research reflexivity journaling, triangulation with secondary data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and Kaggle SME Financial Decision-making Dataset, and inter-coder reliability testing. The thematic analysis yielded three core thematic mechanisms. First, Market Orchestration: market leaders are catalysts in good programs, not passive distributors of funds; market leaders link microentrepreneurs to value chains, export markets, and other platforms that they might not otherwise have access to; market leaders stabilize the incomes of microentrepreneurs, and allow them to grow at scale. Second, Trust-Based Clusters: Leaders who focus on building self-help groups (SHGs) and trust networks, rather than disbursing money, establish social infrastructure that enables groups to share knowledge and take collective risks for long-term community resilience. Third, Entrepreneurial Autonomy: the most sustainable results can be obtained if the programs are specifically time-structured to foster self-reliant technical and marketing skills in micro-enterprises. The findings have great implications for sustainable development theory and practice. The study shows that financial capital alone is not enough to produce growth in microenterprise; instead, strategic leadership – which engages social capital and facilitates institutional resources – is the main driver of scalable, sustainable results. Policy makers are urged to shift funding for the development of leadership from program administrators and to use measures of ecosystem-level performance, including market integration and autonomy transition time, as well as the count of development disbursements. The study further reveals a disconnect between the economic capacity building and the environmental sustainability objectives in existing SCD programs, which will require further research and policy development in the future. These are all important contributions to the field of sustainable development, as they make leadership a key structural factor in the resilience of microenterprises and the sustainability of communities.
Keywords: Microenterprise Growth, Program Leadership, Sustainable Community Development, Entrepreneurship.
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