scholarly journals The Institutional Work of Creating and Implementing Social Impact Bonds

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby Lowe ◽  
Jonathan Kimmitt ◽  
Rob Wilson ◽  
Mike Martin ◽  
Jane Gibbon

Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) are a new and increasingly popular public policy tool which link payments to outcomes thus, in theory, transferring risk from governments to private investors. This paper draws on the concepts of institutional work and discursive institutionalism to analyse how a SIB influenced the rules, norms and decisions of key actors. It identifies two dominant discourses. One focused on addressing the social determinants of health, the other on creating the financial structure needed to run a SIB. These discourses were congruent at a macro-policy level, but tensions emerged between them at the meso and micro levels. This exemplifies the interdependence of structure and agency in institutional work and the mediating role which discourse plays. It also suggests that the effectiveness of a SIB depends not just on whether it achieves its outcome targets but also on whether it can institute new sets of practices and thinking.

Author(s):  
Valentina Patetta ◽  
Marta Enciso Santocildes

The social impact bond (SIB) is defined as a form of payment-by-results scheme combining governmental payments with private investments. This paper explores the motivations and implications of three third sector organisations (TSOs) participating in SIBs in Continental Europe. It offers an understanding of the involvement of TSOs in this type of scheme; and it shares insights about a context that is different from the United Kingdom and the United States – the Netherlands – which presents the opportunity to expand our knowledge about SIBs.


Author(s):  
Sruti Bala

I have argued throughout this study that participatory art practices need to be understood in conjunction with the anxieties and contradictions that accompany them. Whether or not this is a formally constitutive characteristic worthy of naming as a genre is, in my view, less important than finding ways to account for and be responsive to the questions it poses. This is the place that this study departed from, yet oddly, it also the place it finds itself arriving at. For if this study has inquired into some of the conditions for and articulations of participation in the arts, it has also turned out to be an investigation of the ways in which participation is already circumscribed by the questions we ask of it, such as the social impact of participatory art, or its specific aesthetic features. The frictions in this endeavour will have become apparent to the perceptive reader: on the one hand I attempt to identify commonalities and systematic coherences in a field named as participatory art, and on the other hand I seek to analyse it in terms of its deviations from, and incommensurability with, a systematic narrative, in the emphasis of unruly, subtle, non-formalizable modes of participation. I treat participatory art as an inherited category, looking at its diverse, specific operations, or disciplinary routes and historical legacies. At the same time, I try to alter the terms of received wisdom by extrapolating principles and observations from the confines of one disciplinary arena into another. I search for ways in which affiliation to a given type of participatory practice might be described, only to find that formal coherences are perforated by aspects that exceed those same terms of affiliation. The analysis of participatory art and the conceptualization of participation in and through art thereby become intertwined in complex ways....


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (11a) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Nurhayat Çelebi ◽  
Gülenaz Selçuk ◽  
Huriye Sevinç Peker

Today's rapidly evolving technology is expanding the use of innovative communication technologies and their usage areas. to traditional communication technologies today; smartphones, laptop computers, handheld computers, and tablets are also added. Wireless communication technology removes time and space limits, allowing people to communicate both voiced and visual whenever and wherever they wish. Every day, millions of people communicate with each other through social networking networks and share their experience day by day with other network users. The social networks that people often use are also affecting interpersonal relationships. The purpose of this research is to determine the aims of Turkish and German university students to use social networks and how effective social influence is in interpersonal communication. A total of 338 students, 236 Turkish students studying at Karabük University and 102 German students studying at Kassel University in Germany, participated in the research in the academic year of 2016-2017. As a data collection tool, a 10-item questionnaire developed by Özdayı (2010) and a 13-item, “social impact scale” were used. 4 items of the questionnaire used in the study were arranged in the form of "yes-no" and the other items were arranged by the participants to point to the box opposite to the statement they found appropriate. Each participant can mark a few of the options suitable for him / her. Secondly, the "social impact scale" is 5-Likert type. In the face of each article (5) from its fully appropriate expression, (1) Not suitable at all, a gradation to the statement was made. Percentages, mean and t test for binary comparison were used as statistical analysis in the study. According to research findings; all students have smartphones and they use whatsapp, facebook and youtube most from social networks. By students, social media is used to look at mails, homework, study, follow current events, read news, communicate with friends, make new friends, get informed about activities, share videos and photos and have fun. Also by students travel, shopping, technology and cinema blogs are the most preferred. In the survey, in the social dimension of social networks; there was no significant difference between the groups regarding "communication, self-expression, staying out of the group, becoming popular, joining groups, getting social environment, getting status in social environment and sharing". On the other hand, social networking has become an important means of communication and interaction among people today. For this reason, academicians should encourage students who are interested in new technology and communication applications to support the achievement of up-to-date information within the context of lifelong learning, and to conduct research for their own development in the teaching-learning process.


Author(s):  
Chen Liu

This chapter discusses funding and financing issues of small and micro social enterprises (SEs) following a systematic approach. It conducts a systematic review of the SE financing literature and proposes a systematic model to examine the SE financing ecosystem. Specifically, the chapter discusses some traditional financing sources of SEs, including internal money, donations, government grants, and conventional debt and equity and examines SEs' advantage and challenges in securing financing using these traditional ways. To address the challenges of SE financing, this chapter proposes a systematic approach of solution and discusses some new and innovative sources of financing for SEs, such as the social impact bonds and the social venture capital. It then discusses crowdfunding and its best use for various types and stages of SEs. The chapter also suggests a list of future research ideas.


Author(s):  
Thomas B. Lawrence ◽  
Nelson Phillips

This chapter develops the arguments that underpin the rest of the book and introduces the three forms of social-symbolic work explored in greater detail in subsequent chapters. It begins by exploring how the possibility of social-symbolic work is rooted in the historical changes associated with the transitions to modernity and postmodernity. It then develops the concept of social-symbolic work, explaining its roots in studies of social structure and agency, identifying its three key dimensions—discursive, relational, and material—and introducing three key forms of social-symbolic work (self work, organization work, institutional work). Finally, it presents a process model of social-symbolic work that guides the analysis of the different forms of social-symbolic work.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Brandstetter ◽  
Othmar M. Lehner

AbstractSocial and environmental impact investing as an activity as well as a concept has grown in recognition on a truly global scale. Yet, apart from anecdotal success stories of some specialized forms such as social-impact bonds, little is known about the field and the complex interplay between agents, instruments and regulations. Neither the rationales of the various participants in the field, nor the evaluation criteria for some of its instruments have been scrutinized in-depth so far. Especially the important constructs of risk and returns from a financial as well as a social impact perspective have so far been used in differing fashions, thus rendering the applied logic constructs incompatible to each other. Compatibility, however, is a pre-requisite for the inclusion of impact investments into the portfolios of traditional institutional investors. Much can be gained from this, not only would a huge inflow of capital improve the social and environmental sector, but early evidence shows that the overall performance of mixed portfolios might profit because the experienced low correlation of impact investments to traditional markets reduces portfolio risk and increases sustainability. In addition, more and more investors demand ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria to be considered when it comes to building portfolios because of the great opportunities provided.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Rosamond

This article examines the implications of the financialization of social impact and the emerging social impact bonds (SIBs) market for socially engaged art practices. How do SIBs, which allow for investment in social impact metrics, shift the broader contexts through which the value of social impact is understood in art discourses? In the British context, recent projects by Assemble, Open School East and others do important social work, yet echo the logic of the social investment market by outsourcing social impact. Rather than dismissing socially engaged art initiatives as having been recuperated by financialized capitalism, I suggest the need to develop new ways of achieving a double reading of these works as they relate to – and upset the distinctions between – stakeholder and bondholder valuation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Milos Krstic ◽  
Bojan Krstic

In the paper, we thoroughly consider the dominant position of economics within the social sciences. We begin with the presentation of the relative isolation of economics and results of citation research of selected journals in Serbia and Russia. Next thing we analyze is the tight, vertical management of economics which gives economics characteristic hierarchical structure. In last section, we stressed several important facts about worldview, social impact and financial position of economists, which distanced themselfs from scientists in other fields and, as well as the broader layers of the population. In the paper, the focus is on the ideas, attitudes and citations of economists, and not on their material position.


Author(s):  
Chris Fox ◽  
Kevin Albertson

A major innovation in public sector commissioning in recent years is the recourse of the state to so called ‘Outcomes-based Contracts’ particularly Payment by Results (PbR) in the UK. A PbR contract contains three elements, a commissioner, a service provider and an outcomes metric. The outcomes metrics is designed, in theory, to align the incentive structures of the commissioner and the service delivery agency so as to achieve efficient results. Thus, PbR is theorised to allow public commissioners to pay a provider of services on the basis of specified outcomes achieved rather than the inputs or outputs delivered. A related innovation is that of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs). SIBs are distinguished from PbR contracts in that they supposedly allow financiers to contribute to the social innovation process by providing working capital. The return on the SIB is calculated using PbR methodology. Compared to a PbR contract, the SIB contract seeks to align the incentive structures, not only of commissioners and providers, but also financiers through an appropriate metrics-based payments scheme. PbR and SIBs have been referred to as key tools for delivering change. In this chapter we set out the theoretical and practical challenges arising from the development and application of PbR and SIBs and consider the evidence of their efficacy or otherwise.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-61
Author(s):  
Shengfen Zheng

Abstract It has been attracting growing attention of all sectors of society to support social enterprises with social investment. This article focuses on the four much-discussed funding strategies of venture philanthropy, social impact investment, social impact bonds and crowdfunding. For the research, a total of 186 questionnaires were distributed and 92 of them were returned and found valid, with the rate of recovery standing at 49.5%. It is found that among the four strategies, the more heard of, the clearer, but that a strategy is clear does not mean it is readily accepted by the people; and among the companies with the registered name including the wording of social enterprise and those logging in as social enterprises, there is no significant statistical difference in the funding strategy. The result manifests the social enterprises in Taiwan are in the start-up stage, and goes in line with this article’s observation of the funding strategies, i.e., the funding strategy of the social enterprise has a lot to do with its life cycle. On this account, this article holds that we should pay attention to the life cycle of the social enterprises, adopt appropriate funding strategies based on their development stage and build sustainable business modes.


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