Why ‘Doing Good’ is not Good Enough: Essays on Social Impact Measurement

__Abstract__ "We are facing a paradox of ‘doing good’. There is a clear role for philanthropic and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts to play in addressing the social problems that our world faces today. However, evidence seems to suggest that this ‘doing good’ is not effectively solving these social problems. ‘Doing good’ is thus often not good enough. The objectives of this doctoral thesis are to contribute to denuding this paradox of ‘doing good’, and to provide concrete suggestions on how this ‘doing good’ can be done better. A multilevel perspective is taken to identify three main causes for the paradox: 1) goal incongruence between the private sector, government, and the philanthropic sector, 2) a lack of results (impact) measurement at the organizational level, and 3) information asymmetry in the market of ‘doing good’ between donors,

Free to help? An experiment on free will belief and altruism

How does belief in free will affect altruistic behavior? In an online experiment we undermine subjects' belief in free will through a priming task. Subjects subsequently conduct a series of binary dictator games in which they can distribute money between themselves and a charity that supports low-income people in developing countries. In each decision task, subjects choose between two different distributions, one of which is more generous towards the charity. In contrast to previous experiments that report a negative effect of undermining free will on honest behavior and self-reported willingness to help, we find an insignificant average treatment effect. However, we do find that our treatment reduces charitable giving among non-religious subjects, but not among religious subjects. This could be explained by our finding that religious subjects associate more strongly with social norms that prescribe helping the poor, and might therefore be less sensitive to the effect of reduced belief in free will. Taken together, these findings indicate that the effects of free will belief on prosocial behavior are more nuanced than previously suggested

Social Enterprise Evaluation : Implications for Tourism Development

The evaluation of social enterprise projects has focused mainly on devising effective performance measurement methods and processes to justify the investment of resources and time committed to such activities. With increasing demands for accountability, effectiveness, evidence of return on investment and value-added results, evaluation activities have been driven by imperatives of objectivity in assessments and the development of tools that monetize the social outcomes and impacts of social enterprise projects. These traditional approaches to evaluation have also been widely adapted in tourism based social enterprises that seek to attain goals of poverty alleviation, empowerment of local communities, and improved livelihoods for those marginalized from mainstream tourism economic activities. This chapter argues that traditional approaches to evaluation may be limited in supporting social entrepreneurship projects with development objectives of empowerment and societal change. It is proposed that social enterprise projects involving community participation may be better positioned to achieve their developmental objectives by incorporating more of the principles of Participatory Evaluation (PE) and Empowerment Evaluation (EE) in the quest to harness the economic prowess of tourism for human development

Performance Measurement and Accountability of WAQF

It has been seen for the past few years that the revival of waqf institutions has been an upsurge interest of Muslim communities around the world. In line with the revitalization, the issues of measuring and managing waqf performance are growingly being discussed and concerned by the academicians and constituents. Waqf institutions need to demonstrate their performance as whether they have effectively and efficiently managed in order to discharge their accountability to various waqf stakeholders. There are many studies conducted to measure the performance of various organizations in the private, public and third sector. However, studies on the performance measurement of waqf institution are still limited, and financial ratios become the dominant measurement in those studies. Being a non-profit in nature and religious entity, managing the entrusted waqf assets for social and economic development of the society, the performance measurement of waqf institutions should also focus on realizing their missions. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to discuss both financial and non-financial measurement that can be adapted by waqf institutions to assess their performance in discharging their accountability. Drawing from the experience on performance measurement discussed in the non-profit organizations literatures, this conceptual paper is hoped to provide significant insight on how waqf institutions performance may be measured and provide a tool to benchmark the best practices that can guide them to achieve their goals and missions

Advancing performance measurement theory by focusing on subjects : lessons from the measurement of social value

Performance measurement and management (PMM) researchers have recently called for a closer inspection of social controls – the cultural and behavioural aspects of PMM inside organisations – as a complement to longstanding inquiries into technical controls – the rational and structural processes that enable measurement. We address this call by first reviewing the principal findings obtained in the field of social value measurement (SVM), which focuses on the measurement of how and to what extent individuals and groups perceive and realise subjective changes (i.e., in knowledge, access, health, etc.) from interactions with organisations. Subsequently, we distil the main characteristics of SVM research (i.e., the basic conceptualisations, stated purposes and normative principles). We find that SVM tends to highlight the importance of individual and group wellbeing and welfare, aims to understand how organisational actions influence these conditions, and focuses upon individuals’ lived experiences of measuring or being measured. In comparison, PMM research concentrates on technical controls, mainly relies on notions of systems and structured processes, and assumes people’s behaviours are impacted by measures, but does not fully explore their responses. We argue that to properly acknowledge and integrate social aspects of PMM into research and practice, subjects – with their thoughts, emotions and experiences – should be included more explicitly in future studies and theorisations

Different Drivers: Exploring employee involvement in corporate philanthropy

Corporate Philanthropy (CP) is multi-dimensional, differs between sectors and involves both individual and organizational decision-making to achieve business and social goals. However, the CP literature characteristically focuses on strategic decisions made by business leaders and ignores the role of employees, especially those in lower status and lower paid positions. To redress this imbalance, we conducted a qualitative study of employees’ involvement in CP processes in ten workplaces in the South East of England to identify whether and how they are involved in CP decision-making and to capture their perspective on the nature of CP and the benefits generated by such activities. We specifically chose to study workplaces where employees are involved in the actual execution of the CP strategy, prioritising companies with a visible presence on the high street. The results illustrate the benefits of involving employees in CP decision-making, which we argue derives in part from the ‘liminal-like states’ that typify CP activities organised by shop floor staff, involving the temporary overturning of hierarchies, humanising of workplaces and opportunities for lower-level staff to prioritise their personal philanthropic preferences and signal their charitable identity to colleagues and customers. Whilst the data also suggests that CP decision-making remains predominantly top-down and driven by profit-oriented goals, we conclude that employees should be involved in choosing charitable causes as well as in designing and implementing workplace fundraising, in order to maximise the advantages of CP for the company and for wider society

Stakeholder communication in 140 characters or less: a study of community sport foundations

Community sport foundations (CSFs), like other non-profit organizations, are increasingly employing social media such as Twitter to communicate their mission and activities to their diverse stakeholder groups. However, the way these CSFs utilize social media for communicating such practices remains unclear. Through a mixed-method approach of content analysis of tweets from 22 CSFs established by English professional football clubs and interviews with key individuals within these CSFs (n = 7), this study examines the extent to which CSFs’ core activities are being communicated through Twitter and identifies the strategies employed for doing so. Reflecting the target audiences CSFs are seeking to reach through Twitter and the challenges associated with communication about projects involving marginalized groups, tweets largely concern programs related to sports participation and education. The most frequently employed communication strategy is to inform, rather than interact or engage with stakeholders. However, CSFs with higher organizational capacity attempt to go beyond mere informing towards engaging with stakeholder groups that relate to their social agenda, highlighting the importance of trained and dedicated social media personnel in optimizing CSFs’ use of Twitter for communication