The Development of a Measurement Instrument for the Organizational Performance of Social Enterprises

Abstract

There is a growing consensus that the adoption of performance measurement tools are of particular interest for social enterprises in order to support internal decision-making and to answer the demands of accountability toward their stakeholders. As a result, different methodologies to assess the non-financial performance of social enterprises are developed by academics and practitioners. Many of these methodologies are on the one hand discussions of general guidelines or, on the other hand, very case specific. As such, these methodologies do not offer a functional tool for a broad range of social enterprises. The goal of this article is to fill this gap by developing an instrument suitable for the internal assessment and the external reporting of the non-financial performance of a diverse group of social enterprises. To reach this goal, we used qualitative (focus groups and a Delphi panel) and quantitative research methods (exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis), involving multiple actors in the field of social entrepreneurship. Focusing on five dimensions of organizational performance (economic, environmental, community, human and governance performance), we offer a set of indicators and an assessment tool for social enterprises.

Performance of work integration social enterprises in Croatia, Slovenia, and Italian regions of Lombardy and Trentino

“…Regarding papers on performance measurement among social enterprises of all types on the global level, there are studies approaching numerous aspects of the phenomenon from various perspectives. For instance, Arena, Azzone & Bengo (2015) developed an instrument that takes into account efficiency and both management and social effectiveness to evaluate social, environmental, and economic impacts; Lyons (2012) assessed organizational performance using the (modified) Logic Model Framework; Crucke & Decramer (2016) analysed economic, environmental, community, human, and governance performance; Grieco, Michelini & Iasevoli (2016) and Dufour (2015) were interested specifically in the dimension of social-value creation; while Ormiston and Seymour (2012), Bagnoli & Megali (2011), and Liu, Eng & Takeda (2015) focused on analysing organizations in specific places (respectively Latin America, Europe, UK, and Japan). Several researchers analysed the relationship between organizational performance and its (potential) determinants: Liang, Peng, Yao & Liang (2015) analysed the relationship between entrepreneurs' personality traits and their perceived social entrepreneurship performance; Liu, Takeda & Ko (2014) examined the relationship between performance and strategic orientation; while Miles, Verreynne, Luke, Eversole & Barraket (2013) focused on the entrepreneurial orientationperformance relationship.…”

Leadership Style, Organizational Commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior on Credit Union in Indonesia

“…Social enterprises are social missiondriven organizations that develop an entrepreneurial activity to fulfill social needs in the society. For them, profit is not a goal as such, but a mean to create social value (Crucke & Decramer, 2016). Credit union (CU) is a form of social enterprise (SE) (Barna & Vamesu, 2015).…”

Social Franchising Model as a Scaling Strategy for ICT Reuse: A Case Study of an International Franchise

“…These enterprises are responding to business environments with new challenges such as long-term unemployment, climate change, sustained development and social responsibility [2,3]. Therefore, social enterprises are social, mission-driven organizations that develop an entrepreneurial activity (make products and/or deliver goods and services) in order to fulfil unsolved social needs in society [4]. One of the main challenges for social entrepreneurs has been to scale up their venture.…”