Social Impact Measurement and Non-profit Organisations: Compliance, Resistance, and Promotion
Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Tập 25 - Trang 869-886 - 2013
Tóm tắt
Non-profit organisations are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their social impact. This paper examines the experience and behaviour of non-profit organisations in the UK in relation to a demand for social impact evaluations. External resource providers request organisations to present evidence on how resources are used and what organisations have achieved. While most organisations are willing to comply and accept this control, they can also resist through using their discretion in deciding what to measure, how to measure and what to report. Non-profit organisations can proactively and voluntarily use social impact measurement for learning and promotional purposes, and as a way of exerting control over their environment. The analysis develops the concept of strategic decoupling to explain the differences observed between what organisations are asked to do, what they plan to do and what they are doing in practice.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Arvidson, M., Lyon, F., Mackay, S., & Moro, D. (2013). Valuing the Social? The nature and controversies of measuring Social Return on Investment (SROI). Voluntary Sector Review, 4(1), 3–18.
Asdal, K. (2011). The office: The weakness of numbers and the production of non-authority. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 36, 1–9.
Barman, E. (2007). What is the bottom line for nonprofit organizations? A history of measurement in the British voluntary sector. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 18(2), 101–115.
Burger, R., & Owens, T. (2010). Promoting transparency in the NGO sector: Examining the availability and reliability of self-reported data. World Development, 38(9), 1263–1277.
Christensen, R. A., & Ebrahim, A. (2006). How does accountability affect mission? The case of a nonprofit serving immigrants and refugees. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 17(2), 195–209.
Clegg, Stewart. (1989). Frameworks of power. London: Sage Publications.
Department of Health (DPH). (2011). Open public services. London: White Paper.
Ebrahim, A. (2002). Information struggles: The role of information in the reproduction of NGO-funder relationships. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 31(1), 84–114.
Ebrahim, A. (2003). Accountability in practice: Mechanisms for NGOs. World Development, 31(5), 813–829.
Ebrahim, A. (2005). Accountability myopia: Losing sight of organizational learning. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 34(1), 56–87.
Emerson, J. (2003). The blended value proposition: Integrating social and financial returns. California Management Review, 45(4), 35–51.
Gibbon, J., & Dey, C. (2011). Developments in social impact measurement in the third sector: Scaling up or dumbing down? Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 31(1), 63–72.
Hall, M. (2012). Evaluation logics in the third sector. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 23(4). doi:10.1007/s11266-012-9339.
Hall, K., & Arvidson, M. (2013). How do we know if social enterprise works? Tools for assessing social enterprise performance. In S. Denny & F. Seddon (Eds.), Social enterprise: Accountability and evaluation around the world. Oxford: Routledge.
Hirsch, P. M., & Bermiss, Y. S. (2009). Institutional “dirty” work: Preserving institutions through strategic decoupling. In T. B. Lawrence, R. Suddaby, & B. Leca (Eds.), Institutional work: Actors and agency in institutional studies of organizations (pp. 262–283). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge.
HM Government, UK. (2012). Public services (social value) act 2012. London: The Stationary Office.
Hwang, H., & Powell, W. W. (2009). The rationalization of charity: The influences of professionalism in the nonprofit sector. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2(1), 105–132.
Jones, M., & Liddle, J. (2011). Implementing the UK Central Government’s policy agenda for improved third sector engagement: Reflecting on issues arising from third sector commissioning workshops. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 24(2), 157–171.
Kendall, J., & Knapp, M. (2000). Measuring the performance of voluntary organizations. Public Management Review, 2(1), 105–132.
Lawrence, T. B., Suddaby, R., & Leca, B. (Eds.). (2009). Institutional work. Actors and agency in institutional studies of organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leat, D. (2006). Grantmaking foundations and performance measurement: Playing pool? Public Policy and Administration, 21(3), 25–37.
Levay, C., & Waks, C. (2009). Professions and the pursuit of transparency in healthcare: Two cases of soft autonomy. Organization Studies, 30(5), 509–527.
Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy. Dilemmas of the individual in public services. New York: Russell Sage Publications.
Lyon, F., & Sepulveda, L. (2009). Mapping social enterprises: Past approaches, challenges and future directions. Social Enterprise Journal, 5(1), 83–94.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363.
Nicholls, A. (2009). “We do good things don’t we?”: Blended value accounting in social entrepreneurship. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 34(6-7), 755–769.
Nicholls, A. (2010). Institutionalizing social entrepreneurship in regulatory space: Reporting and disclosure by community interest companies. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 35(4), 394–415.
Nicholls, J., Lawlor, E., Neitzert, E., & Goodspeed, J. (2008). A guide to social return on investment. London: Cabinet Office, Office of the Third Sector.
O’Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J. (2007). From functional to social accountability: Transforming the accountability relationship between funders and non-governmental development organisations. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 20(3), 446–471.
O’Neill, O. (2002). A question of trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Osma, G., & Guillamon-Saoring, E. (2011). Corporate governance and impression management in annual results press releases. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 36, 187–208.
Ostrander, S. A. (2007). The growth of donor control: Revisiting the social relations of philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36(2), 105–132.
Pache, A.-C., & Santos, F. (2010). When worlds collide: The internal dynamics of organizational responses to conflicting institutional demands. Academy of Management Review, 35(3), 455–476.
Paton, R. (2003). Measuring and managing social enterprises. London: Sage.
Power, M. (1999). The audit society: Rituals of verifications (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pritchard, D., Ogain, E., & Lumley, T. (2012). Making an impact: Impact measurement among charities and social enterprises in the UK. London: New Philanthropy Capital.
Principles into Practice. (2012). London: Charity Finance Group, ACEAVO, New Philanthropy Capital.
Sandholtz, K. W. (2012). Making standards stick: A theory of coupled vs decoupled compliance. Organization Studies, 33(5–6), 655–679.
Teasdale, S. (2010). Explaining the multifaceted nature of social enterprise: Impression management as (social) entrepreneurial behaviour. Voluntary Sector Review, 1(3), 271–292.
Townley, B. (2011). The role of competing rationalities in institutional change. Academy of Management Journal, 45(1), 163–179.
Tracey, P. (2011). Entrepreneurship and neo-institutional theory. In K. F. Mole & M. Ram (Eds.), Perspectives in entrepreneurship: A critical approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Turco, C. (2012). Difficult decoupling: Employee resistance to the commercialization of personal settings. American Journal of Sociology, 118(2), 380–419.
Verbruggen, S., Christiaens, J., & Milis, K. (2010). Can resource dependence and coercive isomorphism explain nonprofit organizations’ compliance with reporting standards? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40(1), 5–32.
Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1–19.
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). In Applied social research methods series (vol. 5). London: Sage Publications.