Towards An Integrative Definition of Scaling Social Impact in Social Enterprises

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syrus Islam
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Bellucci ◽  
Carmela Nitti ◽  
Serena Franchi ◽  
Enrico Testi ◽  
Luca Bagnoli

PurposeThis study aims to assess the effectiveness of social return on investment (SROI) as a measure of the social impact produced by non-profit organisations and social enterprises that support family-centred care, an approach that focuses on the pivotal role of families in paediatric health care.Design/methodology/approachThe study offers an analytical evaluation of the SROI created by the Italian branch of the Ronald McDonald House Charities and highlights (a) the participatory analysis of stakeholders and outcomes; (b) the measurement of inputs; (c) the definition of outputs and proxies for the measurement of outcomes; (d) the calculation of the SROI ratio; and (e) the results of a sensitivity analysis.FindingsThis study discusses the advantages and shortcomings of SROI analyses, the practical implications of this research on governance and management and the role of engagement in managing the expectations of stakeholders. The value of SROI measurements in shaping strategic and management decisions – with special emphasis on stakeholder relations – is also discussed.Originality/valueNon-profit organisations and social enterprises often require tools that assess the outcomes of their activities. The present research can provide new guidance to SROI analysts, while drawing attention to the most suitable proxies and indicators for evaluating the SROI of organisations operating in the health care sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5870
Author(s):  
Philipp Kruse

Social Entrepreneurship (SE) describes a new entrepreneurial form combining the generation of financial and social value. In recent years, research interest in SE increased in various disciplines with a particular focus on the characteristics of social enterprises. Whereas a clear-cut definition of SE is yet to be found, there is evidence that culture and economy affect and shape features of SE activity. In addition, sector-dependent differences are supposed. Building on Institutional Theory and employing a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, this study sheds light on the existence of international and inter-sector differences by examining 161 UK and Indian social enterprises. A content analysis and analyses of variance were employed and yielded similarities as well as several significant differences on an international and inter-sector level, e.g., regarding innovativeness and the generation of revenue. The current study contributes to a more nuanced picture of the SE landscape by comparing social enterprise characteristics in a developed and a developing country on the one hand and different sectors on the other hand. Furthermore, I highlight the benefits of jointly applying qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Future research should pay more attention to the innate heterogeneity among social enterprises and further consolidate and extend these findings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 4058
Author(s):  
Paolo Esposito ◽  
Valerio Brescia ◽  
Chiara Fantauzzi ◽  
Rocco Frondizi

The aim of this paper is twofold: first, it aims to analyze what kind of value is generated by hybrid organizations and how; second, it aims to understand the role of social impact assessment (SIA) in the measurement of added value, especially in terms of social and economic change generated by hybrids. Hybrid organizations are a debated topic in literature and have different strengths in responding to needs, mainly in the public interest. Nevertheless, there are not many studies that identify the impact and change generated by these organizations. After highlighting the gap in the literature, the study proposes an innovative approach that combines SIA, interview, interventionist approach and documental analysis. The breakdown of SIA through the five elements of the value chain (inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact) guarantees a linear definition of the value generated through change with procedural objectivity capable of grasping hybrid organizations’ complexity. The value generated or absorbed is the change generated by the impact measured based on the incidence of public resources allocated. Through the SIA and counterfactual approach, the civil service case study analysis highlights how the value generated by public resources can be measured or more clearly displayed in the measurement process itself.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2852
Author(s):  
Irene Bengo ◽  
Alice Borrello ◽  
Veronica Chiodo

Social impact investing (SII) is a strategy of asset allocation that aims to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Compared to other approaches of sustainable finance it holds an enormous potential of generating solutions to societal challenges. However, scholars have claimed that social impact often just employs logic upheld by the mainstream investment approach. Therefore, the paper investigates the assumption that SII has not developed a distinctive implementation strategy able to translate the prioritization of social impact into practice and how to overcome this issue. The thematic analysis of data collected through 105 interviews with Italian SII financiers and the top managers of social ventures allowed us to identify three features of an SII tailored practice: promoting a cultural shift of intermediaries, adopting a coopetition approach, and integrating the social impact in the terms of the financial transaction. Lastly, the paper drafts a research agenda to enhance the proper theorization of SII focusing on the definition of social risk, social return, and governance mechanisms. The key contribution of this article is confirming the lack of an SII-specific practice able to endogenize the intent of prioritizing social impact and providing suggestions to prevent the risk of impact washing.


Author(s):  
Andres Felipe Camargo Benavides ◽  
Michel Ehrenhard

AbstractFor decades, the cooperative enterprise (CE) produces market goods and/or provides services in the interest to its members, such as communities, customers, and suppliers. The upsurge of interest in social enterprises, and their balancing of social and economic interests, has also led to a renewed interest in CEs, often seen as a specific type of social enterprise. However, from an organizational perspective, this renewed interest has been both limited and scattered over a variety of fields. In this paper, we systematically review papers on CE in the mainstream organizational literature, defined as literature in the fields of economics, business, management and sociology. Our review integrates and synthesizes the current topics in the mainstream organizational literature and provides a number of avenues for future research. In addition, we compare our findings in the organizational literature to the social issues literature as these appeared to be quite complimentary. We found multilevel studies, determination of social impact—in particular measurable impact, managerial practices for sustainable (organisational) development, and the entrepreneurial opportunity generation process as the four key avenues for future research.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Izabela Grabowska

The publication is devoted to issues related to the development of tools for measuring social impact generated by social enterprises. A valuable aspect of the monograph is the inclusion of case studies of selected tools (such as social return on investment, local multiplier, balanced scorecard) in partnership with social enterprises. The authors pay special attention to solutions enabling the operationalization of social change measurement, taking into account not only financial but, above all, non-financial aspects. They believe that the measurement of impact should take into account not only the economic perspective, but also the public and social one, where values other than material profit also count. The tools should indicate the responsibility of entities towards various types of stakeholders and serve to increase the quality of social services by providing valuable information to individual organizations.


2020 ◽  
pp. 251-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Dowin Kennedy ◽  
Erynn Beaton ◽  
Nardia Haigh

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