When Do Social Enterprises Add Public Value? Institutional Intermediation and Rural Livelihood Resilience in Bangladesh and Nepal

Social enterprises are increasingly proposed as responses to rural service gaps but social mission and digital reach do not, by themselves, establish public value. This article develops an institutional-additionality framework to assess when social-enterprise intermediaries can improve livelihood resilience relative to feasible public, cooperative and conventional private provision. A critical documentary synthesis integrates hybrid-organization research, sustainable livelihoods, polycentric governance and policy capacity. Bangladesh and Nepal provide contrasting settings for examining the conditions under which service coordination becomes inclusive and durable. The analysis proposes a mechanism linking coordination to usable access, beneficiary agency, fair distribution, accountability and continuity during shocks. It identifies a key boundary condition: intermediation is most promising when a meaningful service gap coexists with sufficient public capacity to oversee contracts and address harm. A seven-domain diagnostic, five falsifiable propositions and a counterfactual evaluation protocol translate this argument into research and policy criteria. The framework helps distinguish additional public value from duplicated services, displaced public provision and risk transferred to vulnerable households.