The objective of the research is to conduct social impact assessment of inclusive businesses in Georgia applying the methodology experienced and piloted in the world. Social entrepreneurship is a widely discussed topic in the last year around the globe, in particular the conversation deals with term itself and successful models/examples of social enterprises. However, there is no common approach and definition of the word “social enterprise”/”social entrepreneurship”. Even though inclusive businesses are now being established in Georgia, no research has been conducted, that would measure social and economic value creation of these enterprises and define how “social” social enterprises are. The researched is focused on companies operating in Georgia, which implement social activities and create social value.
The study aims to answer the following research questions:
- Does the social activity of an enterprise depend on its type (whether it is international or local), size (large scale vs medium scale vs small scale) or industry (service, production and etc)?
- What is the difference between Corporate Social Responsibility and social mission of social enterprises?
- Which needs based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs are met with social value created by businesses? (physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization, respect, self- expression)
- How should we measure social impact or what does Social Return on Financial Investment equal to?
- Which tools and methodologies should be applied to assess social impact of inclusive businesses operating in Georgia?
One of the expected outcome of the research will be piloted methodology(ies) of social impact assessment, which will enable all organizations/researchers to measure social value applying unified tool and respectively, compare the findings with each other. Noteworthy, that all of the above-mentioned outcomes will be innovative and useful for stakeholders. Having piloted social impact assessment methodologies of inclusive businesses in Georgia, I plan to conduct the similar study in other entities of the South Caucasus region (Armenia and Azerbaijan). Nowadays in Georgia mostly non-governmental organizations are interested in measurement of social value creation, however, they only use simple basic indicators and social value is not monetized, therefore no Social Return on Investment is calculated. All leading universities around the world have entrepreneurship centers, which research exactly these particular topics. One of the expected outcome of the project is enhanced cooperation with such centers and developed research projects, based on which articles will be published in peer- review and high impact factored journals.
Besides, one more outcome of the research project will be created web site “Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub”, which will allocate all available literature, surveys around the research topic on Georgian and English languages. This will enable stakeholders to access needed information in one space, which on the other hand, will ensure sustainability and creativity/innovation of the project results itself. Later, I am intending to launch the Russian version of the web site as well, which will be the very first unique tri-lingual online platform around social entrepreneurship issues in the South Caucasus region. Moreover, these will also be used as educational base for students in the region.
