Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: To address these research questions, we study the development of ‘Social Return on Investment’ (SROI), an accounting methodology that aims to measure and report on the benefits created for stakeholders by social purpose organizations, such as social enterprises. In each of the two settings we investigate – the United States and the United Kingdom – SROI was developed as an attempt to overcome existing organizational deficiencies by incorporating stakeholders’ voices into the firm’s accounting and reporting system and, crucially, by demonstrating the benefits created by the firm back to its stakeholders. The SROI methodology calculates a ratio of the organization’s costs relative to the monetized benefits gained by different stakeholders from the organization’s activities. Yet, we find that despite similarities in its basic calculative procedure, a comparison of the US and UK cases reveals important differences in how managers' prioritization of stakeholders was reflected in the formulation of the SROI methodology in each setting, including the range of stakeholder worldviews and expertise incorporated in the SROI calculation and the way those stakeholder interests were represented.
Authors: Yuval Millo, Emily Barman, Matthew Hall
Language: English
Subfield: Accounting
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2553039309