State of the art in impact measurement: methods for work integration social enterprises measuring their social value in a public context

Keywords: Social impact measurement; social enterprise; public management Context Social entrepreneurship and the third sector at large have gained a considerable momentum over the past two decades. Stemming from private... [ view full abstract ]

Keywords: Social impact measurement; social enterprise; public management

Context
Social entrepreneurship and the third sector at large have gained a considerable momentum over the past two decades. Stemming from private initiatives, this phenomenon found a positive echo in the public sphere through the political reforms enthused by new public management and their attempt to inject market-inspired mechanisms into public administration. Social enterprises are therefore progressively being recommended as a key lever for governments to focus on in the currently challenging economic context (European Commission and OECD 2013; Hulgård 2011).

This enthusiasm for social enterprises and the development of impact investing has also led to an increasing focus on impact measurement. This trend has first emerged among private actors, eager to prove and manage their impact. While the field of impact measurement has been accelerating in the past few years, a growing number of specialised organisations have emerged (e.g. B Lab, Social Asset Measurements or Sinzer), as well an ever-expanding list of methodologies for social impact measurement.

Public stakeholders have also picked up this infatuation for impact measurement, which happens to be a well-fitted feature for the performance-driven new public management frameworks. In this context, we observe an increasing number of attempts to make social impact measurement part of regulatory frameworks aiming to favour the third sector for the provision of social services (e.g. in 2014 the G8’s Social Impact Investment Taskforce or the European Commission’s Social Impact Measurement Sub-group).


Purpose
The public sphere appears to be progressively institutionalising impact measurement practices inspired form private social ventures, social investors or philanthropists. It does so by taking direct inspiration from the frameworks developed by private stakeholders, and few concerns seem to be given to the specificities of the public sector and public management in this process. This article thus proposes to look at existing impact measurement frameworks using a new public management lens.

This article focuses on a specific kind of social enterprises: work integration social enterprises (WISEs). WISEs are social enterprises aiming at integrating unemployed people on the verge of permanent exclusion through work (Defourny and Nyssens 2010). By focusing on WISEs, this paper narrows its approach to social value by targeting enterprises having one specific aim: social integration through work.


Approach and novelty of the paper
This article is an exploratory analysis that will lay down the stepping-stones for a field research investigating impact measurement for WISEs in a public context. No empirical work has yet been carried-out on the studied issues, and the considerations brought into this paper are purely theoretical.

This article first takes a historical approach on social impact measurement, identifying two main strands in what led to its current development: social accounting audit (Elkington 1997) and social impact assessment (Burdge 2003; Freudenburg 1986). It then proposes a state of the art for impact measurement methodologies, inventorying 69 approaches available for social enterprises in general (Clark et al. 2004; Maas and Liket 2011; Olsen and Galimidi 2008). It then zooms in on methodologies applicable to WISEs.

Once impact measurement methodologies for WISEs have been isolated, we propose an analytical framework to classify them in a public management context (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011). The dimensions retained for the classification are hatched around Pollitt and Bouckaert’s conceptual framework for public management reform performance (2011, pp. 16, 133).

Pollitt and Bouckaert’s framework proposes several drivers that motivate public management reforms, such as improved efficiency, increased effectiveness or accrued economies. Our analytical scheme for impact measurement methodologies therefore provides a matrix to understand how each of the considered methodologies can help assessing the considered public management reform drivers.