Search

In this chapter, the authors would like to highlight few essential point about impact management approaches and theories addressing three critical issues. The first one regards the evaluative object and the distinctions between impact models dedicated to organizations and those dedicated to projects/activities. The second issue concerns the relationship between impact schemes and sustainability metrics, with a focus on the overlapped, blurred, and frequently confused bounda-ries, as well as their developmental trajectory. Finally, the third issue concerns the various evolutionary stages of social and environmental impact, as well as the asso-ciated developmental trajectories and consequences at the implementation level. These three issues represent future lines of academic research and experimental ground for action-research projects.

A new field of interest in the study of the creation of public value is how Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) can lead to collaborative relationships generating public value. This paper frames SIBs in public management studies and provides an analytical tool to assess the feasibility and chances of success of a new SIB. The authors have developed a model that shows the key variables in a SIB, their interactions and the conditions needed for a SIB to co-create value.

Purpose: Social return on investment (SROI) has received increasing attention, both academically and professionally, since it was initially developed by the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund in the USA in the mid-1990s. Based on a systematic review of the literature that highlights the potential and limitations related to the academic and professional development of the SROI model, the purpose of this study is to systematize the academic debate and contribute to the future research agenda of blended value accounting. Design/methodology/approach: Relying on the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses approach, this study endeavors to provide reliable academic insights into the factors driving the usage of the SROI model and its further development. Findings: A systematic literature review produced a final data set of 284 studies. The results reveal that despite the procedural accuracy characterizing the description of the model, bias-driven methodological implications, availability of resources and sector specificities can influence the type of approach taken by scholars and practitioners. Research limitations/implications: To dispel the conceptual and practical haze, this study discusses the results found, especially regarding the potential solutions offered to overcome the SROI limitations presented, as well as offers suggestions for future research. Originality/value: This study aims to fill a gap in the literature and enhance a conceptual debate on the future of accounting when it concerns a blended value proposition.

The extent of the effects produced by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the collaboration between public administrations and the third sector is currently unclear. Undoubtedly, as in any other organizations, social enterprises and non-profit organizations have been severely affected by the spread of COVID-19, especially regarding their relationship with the public sector. Based on an analysis of 563 Italian third sector entities (ETSs) that responded to an online survey launched in March 2020, this study aims to explore the current state and extent of the potential change in the collaboration between organizations belonging to the third sector and the Italian public administration system in response to the COVID-19 emergency. The results have shown that only approximately one-third of the organizations have been asked to jointly contribute with the public sector to contain the negative effects of the pandemic. In other cases, spontaneous support initiatives have been undertaken to manage the crisis. The findings have also revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the internal operating and functioning mechanisms of the or- ganizations operating in the third sector. The study concludes with a forecast of the potential ex- acerbation of the difficulties currently faced by the third sector and with the provision of future strategic paths to contain the health, social and economic effects of the pandemic.

The paper analyzes the PNRR in relationship with the sustainable development frameworks and policy agendas. The aim of the research is to identify possible methodologies for assessing the social and environmental impact of this coming season of public investments that will affect Italy through the PNRR.

This chapter intends to shed light on the role of intellectual capital (IC) in the nonprofit sector, which emerges as an under-investigated research area within the IC studies. According to the literature (Kong, The strategic importance of intellectual capital in the non-profit sector. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 8 (4), 721–731, 2007; The development of strategic management in the non-profit context: Intellectual capital in social service non-profit organisations. International Journal of Management Reviews, 10 (3), 281–299, 2008), we identify the three components of IC (human capital, structural capital, relational capital) in order to determine the sub-components to be measured via key performance indicators (KPIs) (Bontis et al., Intellectual capital and financial performance in social cooperative enterprises. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 19 (4), 712–731. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-03-2017-0049, 2018). A principal component analysis has been applied and then a regression model has tested the significance of a relationship between the IC sub-components and the financial performance of non-profit organizations (NPOs). Results show that two human capital sub-components (training, value added) and one structural capital sub-component (services) affect the return on assets (ROA). Further studies should be conducted with larger samples and geographic areas covered in order to generalize these findings.

Gender bias estimation and mitigation techniques in word embeddings lack an understanding of their generalization capabilities. In this work, we complement prior research by comparing in a systematic way four gender bias metrics (Word Embedding Association Test, Relative Negative Sentiment Bias, Embedding Coherence Test and Bias Analogy Test), two types of projection-based gender mitigation strategies (hard- and soft-debiasing) on three well-known word embedding representations (Word2Vec, FastText and Glove). The experiments have shown that the considered word embeddings are consistent between them but the debiasing techniques are inconsistent across the different metrics, also highlighting the potential risk of unintended bias after the mitigation strategies.

In recent years, as global food chains have expanded, a wide range of terms has been used in the academic, political, technical or social debate to illustrate innovative re-organisation of food supply chains aiming at re-connecting producers and consumers and re-localising agricultural and food production. These include short supply chains, alternative food networks, local farming systems and direct sales. This paper presents a research carried out during the SMARTCHAIN project (Horizon project within the research line “Innovative agro-food chains: unlocking the potential for competitiveness and sustainability”). The research aims at iden-tifying an assessment model for grasping the level of social innovation in Short Food Supply Chain (SFSC) taking into consideration the social and sustainability indicators. A specific tool, the Social Innovation Assessment Template (SIAT) was created for this purpose. The SIAT investigates five dimensions of SFSC: economic, environmental, socio-cultural, governance and influence (positive impact on other sectors & stakeholders) dimensions. The assessment has been tested in 9 European countries and 16th case studies. The findings show both managerial implications for the SFSC and policy implications for strengthening the SFSC ecosystem.

The social impact assessment (SIA) process is widely utilised and is receiving increasing interest from both scholars and practitioners. A systematic approach was applied in this study to search for articles about SIA models. In the first step, we analysed six main SIA model mappings between 2004 and 2015. In the second step, 98 models were identified. The main findings include the definition of emerging paths for the future research agenda on this topic. Compared with previous SIA mappings, we identified 22 additional models that are related to the sustainability discourse. The meaning of sustainability is defined both by the emergence of new systems in finance that require specific metrics and in relation to the global agenda towards sustainable development. It is interesting to notice how social impact models, sustainability indicators (under the global framework of sustainable development goals (SDGs)) and new financial scores (such as environmental, social and governance (ESGs)) are converging into a common discourse, even if divergence is still present, and further research is needed to unlock the relationships among them.

Social Enterprise (SE) has been an established field of research and training for more than two decades in EU, (EC 2020) and curricula on social enterprise today exist in the high-level educational system (HE) and Vocational Education and Training (VET), both in countries where the social enterprise is widespread and in countries where it is a new trend (Borzaga 2020). This paper reviews the provision of education and training for SE, at HE and VET level, in Italy, Greece, Ireland and Slovenia, with the aim to deepen on what themes are addressed under the topics of sustainability and growth, as well as how social impact is combined with sustainability and growth. Moreover, a focus is given to the training approaches and techniques most utilized by lecturers. The research shows that the provision of education and training in SE varies greatly. The findings identify a range of teaching contents used to address the same topic, specifically for the two issues analyzed (sustainability and growth). At the same time the awareness of the key challenges that characterized SE education programs is broadly shared.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the state of the art of bottom-up actions that lead to cultural and social regeneration using an in-depth case study in the city of Rome: the MAAM (Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere), a converted factory that has been occupied and it has a twofold use: it is a social housing and a contemporary art museum. The objectives of this paper are: a) a literature review of bottom up organizations that are able to transforms from illegal to institutional (still remaining illegal from a juridical point of view) b) a qualitative descriptive analysis of the case study MAAM enriched by interviews ad hoc to the “pioneers” on cultural processes and experiences in the studied areas c) a documental analysis of the case study. In particular, the authors have organized the parameters into eight specific categories through the information analyzed in the documents, that help to have a mapping of the practices, their similarities and distinctions. The scheme is useful to replicate the study in other Urban areas and compare the results.

Scientific research into Social Impact Bonds (henceforth, SIBs) has consistently grown over the last 15 years, from an average publication of 10 papers per year (henceforth, PPY) between 2007–2011, to 25 PPY during 2012–2014 and to more than 50 PPY from 2015 (Web of Science, previously known as ISI Web of Knowledge). This chapter aims to explore this development of academic research by using a bibliometric analysis. The findings are organised into two forms of assessment: public sector reform (henceforth, PSR) versus financial sector reform (henceforth, FSR); and optimistic versus pessimistic responses. By combining the two forms, we obtain a matrix in which existing literature can be clustered into four quadrants along a longitudinal study for the period 1990–2018.

The growing interest in the issues of sustainability and social innovation opens new opportunities to explore the great potential of technological innovation in favour of social and environmental impact objectives. However, the scientific community dealing with these issues is facing new challenges to make the achieved results measurable. This research aims to verify the possibility of overcoming the limit of measurability of social impact by integrating social innovation and digital innovation. More specifically, gathering the social impact measurement data and applying business intelligence methods to construct a data warehouse containing a benchmark on the impact chain (Clark at.al 2004). The results show a great potential of information that can be generated by digital technologies to make social innovation processes more measurable, reliable and scalable.

In 2021 the Charlmagne foundation has launched “Periferiacapitale”: a social innovation program to support community-based organizations (n = 13, based in Rome municipality) with different social impact objectives in urban areas characterized by social exclusion and marginalization conditions. This set of different organizations (NPOs, networks of associations, training institutions, social cooperatives) were supported by overcoming the traditional paradigm of philanthropic intervention, focusing on social impact-based capacity building: in order to visualize, measure and communicate the social impact evaluation of their projects. With respect with this policy framework, the present contribution intends to describe the work SI2 methodology (Social Enterprise * Social Impact) developed through research-action activities with the organizations involved in the program. The objective of the contribution is to introduce the value of impact readiness methodologies as a strengthening strategy with which these organizations can influence the policy making processes with which to activate new resources and activities.

This paper aims at investigating a perspective for the social impact measurability by collecting and analysing open data at the international level. Our goal is to shed light on the unlocked potential of the knowledge produced by a global community of scholars and practitioners engaged in social impact measurement processes. Global open data on social impact assessment (SIA) have been mapped and collected in a database using the impact chain as a reference point for choosing the variables. In this paper, we focus on the potential use of these data to enable forecasting analysis about the expected social value and to inform decision-making processes aimed at responding to complex social challenges. The early findings suggest the opportunity of a wider action-research initiative, by engaging different typologies of stakeholders and organizations aimed at incorporating social impact as a key strategic driver.

This chapter analyses participative and entrepreneurial activities in the cultural and creative sector in Italy, by adopting a benchmarking approach. We present the case of a call for projects addressed to all actors working in the cultural sector by Lazio Region, regarding the promotion of the region’s cultural heritage. Projects are evaluated and graded by a team of experts: those scoring more than 70/100 points are included in the collection of “BuonePratiche”, a publication by the Regional Directorate for Culture. We propose a research design based on the following steps. First, we build the theoretical framework by defining the cultural and creative sector, and then we illustrate our chosen approach, i.e. evaluation in the cultural sector. Then, the case study regarding “BuonePratiche” is presented and analysed. Data was collected from the direct observation of the call for projects and subsequent evaluation by experts, and from accessing the database containing all projects and their scores. Results indicate that actors in the cultural sector prioritise the enhancement of cultural heritage over entrepreneurship: this may represent an opportunity for improvement by educating cultural players on combining entrepreneurship and culture. We also find that networking has a positive influence on achieving better scores.

This paper aims to investigate Social Impact Bond (SIB), as a specific social finance tool able to involve various stakeholder groups in generating social value. The theoretical framework is the study of the outcome-based commissiong models of Anglo-Saxon origin and rapidly spread throughout Europe. The research question concerns the main opportunities and challenges posed by the SIBs in the perspective of Italian public decision-makers. The results of the research consist in clustering of the various roles that the PA can assume in an SIB and in the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Italian context with respect to the development of this tool.