Shanshan Guan
University of York
Shanshan Guan is a second year PhD candidate in The University of York, UK. She holds two master degrees in Management and Social Policy in The University of York as well. Her current PhD thesis is to explore how social enterprises work with migrant children in China. Are they effective alternatives to government in delivering public service to migrant children? Her research interests also include exploring mechanisms using to measure social impact, social enterprise ecosystem development, and how do social enterprises make changes in different areas. She is also a member of the Social Policy Association.
Key word: Social enterprise; Social impact; Theory of Change; Chinese migrant children
Despite considerable discussion of the multiple nature and the distinctive characteristics of social enterprise, there is much less research on how to evaluate the social impacts and performance of social enterprise. Measuring social impacts or social values is challengeable since social impact is socially constructed and social outcomes with complex nature are rather difficult to quantify or even intangible (Parton, 2003; Mulgan, 2010). Mulgan (2010) even indicates that there are hundreds of competing tools using to measuring social values, of which different interests groups prefer different ones.
This research introduces a measurement practice of two social enterprises working with internal migrant children in China. Following with the implementation of the ‘Reform and Opening Up’ policy (1980s), China has experienced a rapid industrialisation and urbanisation process, creating plenty of employment opportunities in non-agricultural sectors. With expecting the large income differences between city and country, a large amount of rural residents chose to migrate to the urban areas for better living chances. There are 35.81 million internal rural-urban migrant children in China (Chinese Women’s Federation, 2013), however, migrant children confront with variety of challenges with respect to their school education opportunity, family and parenting, psychological health, and etc. after they migrating to urban areas (Wang, 2012; Li & Zeng, 2012;Duan, 2008).
To solve those challenges and to improve migrant children’s comprehensive personal development, some pioneering social entrepreneurs have been engaging in providing services to migrant children in China. However, there is much few researches shed light on their performance and impacts. Little empirical evidence was given to clarify whether and how effective those social enterprises are in making changes. Therefore a variety puzzles awaiting scientific and theoretic research:
• Whether social enterprise practice is an efficient way to improve the well being of migrant children? If it is, what implications can provide to policy makers and government? If it is not, how do local contextual factors influence their activities?
• How to identify and measure the social impact of those social enterprises? What changes do they actually make? How and why?
To addressing above research questions, this research employs Theory of Change framework to provide a comprehensive map of how outcomes/changes are achieved step by step. Theory of Change is commonly understood as an articulation of how activities will lead to a change (Weiss, 1995;Connell et al, 1998) and it has been widely practiced by many non-profit organisations and social enterprises with purposes of planning, learning, monitoring, and evaluation (James, 2013; Stein and Valters, 2012).
The fieldwork was conducted in two community service centers which provide variety of services to migrant children in Beijing and Shanghai respectively. During the field work, six weeks long participant observation were conducted in each social enterprise with main purpose of exploring what do they actually do and investigating the environmental conditions that may significantly impact the overall practice. Different views and perceptions on given intervention and activities of the two social enterprises were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus groups from different stakeholders (social enterprise staff, migrant children, parents, and local authorities). Some initial findings will be presented. This research seeks to make contributions to the measurement practice of social enterprise’s impacts. It is also expected to give policymakers a new insight into improving situation of this group of children.
References:
Connell, J. P., & Kubisch, A. C. (1998). Applying a theory of change approach to the evaluation of comprehensive community initiatives: progress, prospects, and problems. New approaches to evaluating community initiatives, 2(15-44).
Duan, C.R. and Yang, K. (2008). Study on the Latest Situation of Migrant Children in China. Population Journal, 16 (6), 23-31
Mulgan, G. (2010). Measuring social value. Stanford Social Innovation Review,(Summer), 38-43.
Paton, R. (2003). Managing and measuring social enterprises. London: Sage Publications.
Stein, D., & Valters, C. (2012). Understanding theory of change in international development. London School of Economics and Political Science, London.
Weiss, C.H. (1995). Nothing as Practical as Good Theory: Exploring Theory-Based Evaluation for Comprehensive Community Initiatives for Children and Families. In J. Connell, A. Kubisch, L. Schorr and C. Weiss (Eds.) New Approaches to Evaluating Community Initiatives: Concepts, Methods and Contexts. New York: Aspen Institute (65-92).
