TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The paper aims to examine a citizen-centric model of governmental entrepreneurship that transforms public service management for the empowerment of marginalized women.Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative methodology to analyze the distinctive model of a rural livelihoods program in India. A fieldwork was conducted in four villages, a total of 250 women were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire and eight focus-group discussions were conducted. The data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis and discourse analysis. Finally, the findings were shared with women in the study area.Findings The analysis suggests that the adoption of distinct management for social welfare program results in social legitimacy and social value creation. JEEViKA illustrates that citizen-centric social entrepreneurship model is an outcome of internal and external governance mechanisms, strategy that thrusts on skills and capacity as investment, tools local women (community resource persons) as instruments and targets spatial saturation as an intervention creates political and economic participation, and that marketability promotes power over economic resources that enable freedom from servitude.Research limitations/implications The model provides a direction to overcome multiple barriers to addressing poverty and marginalization.Practical implications Poor and government can leverage through the collaborative capacity to meet ever-evolving social needs by developing a state-society partnership in citizen-centric governmental entrepreneurship.Social implications The policies to overcome large-scale marginalization can adopt citizen-centric model to create social legitimacy that furthers social value among the poor and marginalized rural women.Originality/value This study provides a model that illustrates government ability to transform marginalized poor as co-producers of development benefits. VL - 13 IS - 1 SN - 1750-6166 DO - 10.1108/TG-03-2018-0023 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-03-2018-0023 AU - Kumar Avanish PY - 2019 Y1 - 2019/01/01 TI - Citizen-centric model of governmental entrepreneurship: Transforming public service management for the empowerment of marginalized women T2 - Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 62 EP - 75 Y2 - 2024/04/26 ER -