Social enterprise initiatives that place systemic social and environmental issues at the heart of their business model are growing in number, albeit facing many challenges (Teasdale et al, 2013; Kerlin, 2006; Allen et al, 2012; Robinson, 2006). Despite the heterogeneity of missions, motivations, governance, business and legal models characterising social enterprises (Evers and Laville, 2004; Young, 2001), a unifying feature is the conviction that more should and can be done to ensure social and environmental value creation than is the norm in conventional commercial enterprises (Seelos and Mair, 2006). The scope of this paper is restricted to social enterprises in the off-grid renewable energy sector that undertake high risk market experiments with an explicit aim to benefit the community while limiting profit distribution and decision power based on capital ownership (Deffourny and Nyssens, 2010; Amin, 2009). By virtue of making social and/or environmental innovation a core remunerative business, they operate at the fringe of the market and tend to be small, lean and resource constrained organisations. In this context, and in the start-up phase in particular, learning often takes place in an ad hoc manner (Robinson, 2006) and there is a lack of capacity to engage in organisational learning by means of a formal monitoring and evaluation process.
The aim of this study is to support start-up social enterprises to develop light-weight and reflexive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks that can structure and support their learning process, and take account of 'good practice' evidence gathering, evaluation design and methodology, as currently understood in the international development policy environment (DFID, 2012). Developmental evaluation (DE) has been used elsewhere to inform and support social innovation as implementers experiment with, learn from, and adjust their approaches and activities in the face of systemic uncertainty (Patton, 2011; see Burns et al, in press; Honadle et al, 2014). However, DE does not come with methodological prescriptions and there is a need to test alternatives to (quasi- ) experimental design as a credible and robust means of providing evidence, testing theory, and improving targeting and implementation of interventions (DFID, 2012).
To fill these gaps we first review available M&E approaches, drawing on a literature review and interviews with consultants and practitioners experienced in particular M&E methodologies and their applications to social enterprise. Second, we use our findings to formulate a DE framework and apply it to support the formative stages of a fledgling social enterprise in Orissa, India. The case study involves an integrated set of interventions to facilitate and provide maintenance and repair services for solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in an area characterised by widespread solar technology failure (Borah, 2014; Cross, 2013; Harnmeijer et al, 2014). The capacity to resolve these issues is constrained by a suite of socio-economic, material, organisational and human resource factors operating at micro, meso and macro levels. Poverty and physical remoteness inhibit off-grid end-users to access markets, technical skills and infrastructure. Given the ‘systemic’ obstacles to sustained operation and maintenance of solar PV technology, any identified solution must adjust to new challenges and opportunities as they emerge.
Our approach focuses on ‘real-time’ operational formative valuation, building on a user-driven Unified Messaging Platform (UMP) as the primary communication line between end-users and social entrepreneurs. As the UMP is used, it begins to provide data on the scale, locality of demand, response time and performance, informing entrepreneur follow-up and adjustments in the management and operation of the enterprise. We show that user-driven ICT innovations not only can generate specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound (SMART) data indicators (OECD, 2010), but also incorporate evaluation frameworks in the fabric of enterprise design and governance. Furthermore, our framework for evaluation is grounded in existing systems-level theoretical frameworks for socio-technical change (Geels, 2002; Bergek et al., 2008; Avelino et al, 2014) and their applications in developing country context (Romijn et al., 2010; Lundvall, 2013; Tigabu, Berkhout and Beukering, 2013). Given the ample evidence of medium-long term technology failure for a range of renewable energy technologies in emerging or developing country contexts the approach and findings described here are likely to be relevant for comparable initiatives aspiring to facilitate a shift from fully subsidized renewable energy programmes to self-sustaining local energy economies.
