scholarly journals The impact of social reporting on the performance of Italian social enterprises

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Pozzoli ◽  
Alberto Romolini

The Third Sector is a crucial social and economic system at an international level in supplying pub-lic services. The Italian law no 155/2006 and the consequent operating decrees have formally rec-ognised the social entrepreneurship, requiring social enterprises (SEs), among other things, to provide specific disclosure in relation to the social impact of their operations. This paper aims to in-vestigate whether there is a relation between the “quality” of SEs’ social reporting and financial per-formance. In relation to this, the research has examined the SEs instituted as limited liabilities companies. The research contributes to the development of this field of studies, concluding that there is no cause-effect relation neither in the hypothesis that the quality of social reports affects the financial performance, neither in the hypothesis that financial performance affects the quality of so-cial reports.

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 138-144
Author(s):  
Danilo Tuccillo ◽  
Caterina Ferrone ◽  
Francesco Agliata

The social impact bond (SIB), at the present in Italy, is a financial instrument issued by a bank to support social initiatives in which the subscriber will receive a limited financial return on investment. As part of that performance, the social return for the community is considered as an integration of the financial performance that will replace a part of the interest rate. The first experience in Italy is represented by a bank that has issued 45 Social Bond for 472 million euros. The research analyses, on the basis of the character-ristics of the third sector in Italy, with particular reference to the financial weakness of the sector, the possible impact on the financial management process in the social enterprises by the use of SIB. Moreover, we would demonstrate that, with a well-conducted cost-benefit analysis, it is possible to construct a hypothesis of SIB in which the repayment is based on market rate. In particular, is proposed the development of a SIB with the objective of formulating hypotheses of response to the innovative following questions: Given certain cost drivers, what social outcomes would generate savings for the state budget able to fully repay the fixed costs of the SIB, to give a percentage of the benefit to the government and to ensure the repayment to investors? How to identify the timing of cash flows in order to structure a potential internal rate of return objective satisfactory for investors? Due to the lack of already developed case studies, with the technics of the business plan, we analyse the impact of SIB on social and financial performance, both from the point of view of the Public Administration and of the social enterprise, in a project of social housing introducing a remuneration rate at market level. The development of the project shows that, with the integration of the private and public perspective, it is possible to improve the social and financial performance offering an adequate interest rate and, moreover, without limit the hypothesis of SIB underwriting to the philanthropic institution.


Author(s):  
Phillip D. Stevenson ◽  
Christopher A. Mattson ◽  
Kenneth M. Bryden ◽  
Nordica A. MacCarty

More than ever before, engineers are creating products for developing countries. One of the purposes of these products is to improve the consumer’s quality of life. Currently, there is no established method of measuring the social impact of these types of products. As a result, engineers have used their own metrics to assess their product’s impact, if at all. Some of the common metrics used include products sold and revenue, which measure the financial success of a product without recognizing the social successes or failures it might have. In this paper we introduce a potential metric, the Product Impact Metric (PIM), which quantifies the impact a product has on impoverished individuals — especially those living in developing countries. It measures social impact broadly in five dimensions: health, education, standard of living, employment quality, and security. The PIM is inspired by the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) created by the United Nations Development Programme. The MPI measures how the depth of poverty within a nation changes year after year, and the PIM measures how an individual’s quality of life changes after being affected by an engineered product. The Product Impact Metric can be used to predict social impacts (using personas that represent real individuals) or measure social impacts (using specific data from products introduced into the market).


Author(s):  
José Carlos Ballester-Miquel ◽  
Pilar Perez-Ruiz ◽  
Javier Hernandez-Gadea ◽  
Hugo De juan Jordán ◽  
Maria Guijarro García

<p class="Textoindependiente21"><span lang="EN-US">The aim of this article is to offer a review of the impact the different methodologies of analysis have on social enterprises, focusing the study on processes that establish a greater universality based on the degree of success achieved in their social objectives, the social reinvestment of their benefits and their democratic organisation, parameters that should favour the creation of a clear and simple method, as well as adaptable to change. The systematics will allow to establish systems for the measurement of the efficiency of social enterprises, in order to both organise objective procedures of comparison and offer support when applying for public aid derived from European and national funds set up for this purpose. The quantification of the social impact of the companies that constitute the social economy is vital to assess and follow up on their social mission.</span></p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-27
Author(s):  
Belen Suarez Lopez ◽  
Antonio Vargas Alcaide

When the impossible becomes inevitable. The covid-19 has disrupted increasing the speed of changes in the Industry 4.0, highlighting the need to make a paradigm shift from ego-system to eco-system perspective, challenging organizations and citizens to react from their changemakers role. Two crucial needs arise: firstly, the need to innovate to address the tremendous and complex challenges we face and on the other hand, the need to assess and manage our social impacts. Most organizations should redesign their purpose to focus on measuring, monitoring, and reporting not only in financial terms but also taking into account the non-financial performance, especially in terms of sustainability. Some authors names this time, the era of “stakeholders capitalism”. This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific, standardization, and business discussion on understanding how organizations could measure their financial, environmental, and social impacts; how to increase the quality of the sustainability reporting, and deliver the most benefit for their stakeholders. The article analyzes the pathway of Innovating, Evaluating and Reporting the Impact, using the materiality assessment as a driver to create value thanks to disruptive technologies as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and the Internet of things. The result of the study can be practically valuable for many stakeholders: the Organizations Management and Boards, Chief Innovation Officers and Teams responsible for Sustainability reporting, Auditors assuring the reliability of sustainable reporting, the Scientifics researching on the topic of Innovation, Impact Assessment, and Sustainability; Public Administrations for addressing the economic, social and environmental challenges, and building trust by ensuring transparency and accountability; Investors and other stakeholders interested on understanding long-term value creation and the social and environmental risk assessment to incentivize sustainable growth.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 1885-1908 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Džunić ◽  
Jelena Stanković ◽  
Vesna Janković-Milić

The paper explores the potential impact of social enterprises on social exclusion. In particular, the role of social enterprises in labour market integration of socially excluded individuals is analysed within the existing theoretical and policy discourses of exclusion. Taking into account the difficulties in measuring the social impact of social enterprises, our study contributes to the quantitative literature on the performance of social enterprises, taking the number of integrated people as a measure of the impact on social exclusion. The research is based on data on the employment of marginalized groups, derived from a unique dataset collected by a recently conducted survey of social enterprises in Serbia. The original methodological framework combines statistical methods and multi-criteria decision making model, in order to evaluate the contribution of different types of enterprises to the employment of excluded individuals. Weights determination for the MCDM model is performed using entropy while TOPSIS method is applied for the ranking of the types of social enterprises according to the employment of socially excluded categories. The results indicate that enterprises for employment of persons with disabilities, citizens’ associations and cooperatives in Serbia contribute the most in integrating the socially excluded.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haifa Chtourou ◽  
Mohamed Triki

Purpose The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of commitment in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in its various forms (CSR philanthropy/ altruism, CSR integration and CSR innovation) on the financial performance as measured by certain ratios. Design/methodology/approach Thus, on the basis of a theoretically constructed questionnaire administered to 82 responsibles (general managers, human resources managers and CSR responsibles) operating in four business areas, the authors have developed the extent of the overall CSR commitment and the extent of commitment by CSR action type. Findings The examination of the impact of the CSR commitment on the financial performance has partially approved the social impact assumption. Indeed, only the positive effect of CSR philanthropy is demonstrated. Otherwise, for integrated and innovative actions, the low involvement in these actions in relation to philanthropic ones could explain the lack of significant association. But this result is also important, as it marks the lack of any negative effects. Even if they do not result in a better financial performance, these commitments do not bring harm to the firm. As for the strategic approach predominance on the altruistic approach, this hypothesis is checked only in the case of firms operating in the chemical sector. Research limitations/implications The main limitation of the study is the limited size of the total sample and the sample by industry, so the authors expect a larger sample might be able to provide more meaningful results. Practical implications Then, the study suggests the importance of implementing real CSR strategies for firms that often find doubt and ambiguity when they decide to undertake social actions. However, these results do not mean that companies must refrain from driving altruistic or philanthropic activities but are encouraged to seek a social performance that suits a certain level of integration and innovation. Social implications The most important of all the above is that the negative impact of social actions is not verified in any way, allowing to state that the social actions do not exert a negative effect on the financial performance. So, participation in social problems do not bring harm to the firm. Originality/value The originality of this work comes from: the measure of CSR commitment, and the use of a classification typology of CSR actions in terms of their interaction with the core of the firm’s business as developed by Halme (2009). In fact, based on a theoretically constructed questionnaire, the authors have developed two measures of responsible commitment (level of commitment and intensity of commitment) of some industrial Tunisian firms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adweeti Nepal ◽  
Santa Kumar Dangol ◽  
Anke van der Kwaak

Abstract Background The persistent quality gap in maternal health services in Nepal has resulted in poor maternal health outcomes. Accordingly, the Government of Nepal (GoN) has placed emphasis on responsive and accountable maternal health services and initiated social accountability interventions as a strategical approach simultaneously. This review critically explores the social accountability interventions in maternal health services in Nepal and its outcomes by analyzing existing evidence to contribute to the informed policy formulation process. Methods A literature review and desk study undertaken between December 2018 and May 2019. An adapted framework of social accountability by Lodenstein et al. was used for critical analysis of the existing literature between January 2000 and May 2019 from Nepal and other low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) that have similar operational context to Nepal. The literature was searched and extracted from database such as PubMed and ScienceDirect, and web search engines such as Google Scholar using defined keywords. Results The study found various social accountability interventions that have been initiated by GoN and external development partners in maternal health services in Nepal. Evidence from Nepal and other LMICs showed that the social accountability interventions improved the quality of maternal health services by improving health system responsiveness, enhancing community ownership, addressing inequalities and enabling the community to influence the policy decision-making process. Strong gender norms, caste-hierarchy system, socio-political and economic context and weak enforceability mechanism in the health system are found to be the major contextual factors influencing community engagement in social accountability interventions in Nepal. Conclusions Social accountability interventions have potential to improve the quality of maternal health services in Nepal. The critical factor for successful outcomes in maternal health services is quality implementation of interventions. Similarly, continuous effort is needed from policymakers to strengthen monitoring and regulatory mechanism of the health system and decentralization process, to improve access to the information and to establish proper complaints and feedback system from the community to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of the interventions. Furthermore, more study needs to be conducted to evaluate the impact of the existing social accountability interventions in improving maternal health services in Nepal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 1344-1361
Author(s):  
Isaiah Oino

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of transparency and disclosure on the financial performance of financial institutions. The emphasis is on assessing transparency and disclosure; auditing and compliance; risk management as indicators of corporate governance; and understanding how these parameters affect bank profitability, liquidity and the quality of loan portfolios. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 20 financial institutions was selected, with ten respondents from each, yielding a total sample size of 200. Principal component analysis (PCA), with inbuilt ability to check for composite reliability, was used to obtain composite indices for the corporate governance indicators as well as the indicators of financial performance, based on a set of questions framed for each institution. Findings The analysis demonstrates that greater disclosure and transparency, improved auditing and compliance and better risk management positively affect the financial performance of financial institutions. In terms of significance, the results show that as the level of disclosure and transparency in managerial affairs increases, the performance of financial institutions – as measured in terms of the quality of loan portfolios, liquidity and profitability – increases by 0.3046, with the effect being statistically significant at the 1 per cent level. Furthermore, as the level of auditing and the degree of compliance with banking regulations increases, the financial performance of banks improves by 0.3309. Research limitations/implications This paper did not consider time series because corporate governance does not change periodically. Practical implications This paper demonstrates the importance of disclosure and transparency in managerial affairs because the performance of financial institutions, as measured in terms of loan portfolios, liquidity and profitability, increases by 0.4 when transparency and disclosure improve, with this effect being statistically significant at the 1 per cent level. Originality/value The use of primary data in assessing the impact of corporate governance on financial performance, instead of secondary data, is the primary novelty of this study. Moreover, PCA is used to assess the weight of the various parameters.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Sibitz ◽  
M. Amering ◽  
A. Unger ◽  
M.E. Seyringer ◽  
A. Bachmann ◽  
...  

Abstract:Objective:The quality of life (QOL) of patients with schizophrenia has been found to be positively correlated with the social network and empowerment, and negatively correlated with stigma and depression. However, little is known about the way these variables impact on the QOL. The study aims to test the hypothesis that the social network, stigma and empowerment directly and indirectly by contributing to depression influence the QOL in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders.Method:Data were collected on demographic and clinical variables, internalized stigma, perceived devaluation and discrimination, empowerment, control convictions, depression and QOL. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied to examine the impact of the above-mentioned constructs on QOL.Results:The influences of the social network, stigma, empowerment and depression on QOL were supported by the SEM. A poor social network contributed to a lack of empowerment and stigma, which resulted in depression and, in turn, in poor QOL. Interestingly, however, the social network and stigma did not show a direct effect on QOL.Conclusions:Following a recovery approach in mental health services by focusing on the improvement of the social network, stigma reduction and especially on the development of personal strength has the potential to reduce depression in patients with psychosis and improving their QOL.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliza Hixson

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the social impact that two events, the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Clipsal 500, have on young residents (16-19 years old) of Adelaide. The purpose of this paper is to examine how young people participate in these events and how this affects their sense of involvement in the event and contributes to their identity development. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed methods approach was adopted in which focus groups and questionnaires were conducted with secondary school students. As an exploratory study, focus groups (n=24) were conducted in the first stage of the research. The results of the focus groups were used to develop a questionnaire that resulted in 226 useable responses. The final stage of the research explored one event in further depth in order to determine the influence of different participation levels. Findings – This study found that young people demonstrated more involvement in the Adelaide Fringe Festival and their identities were more influenced by this event. Further investigation of the Adelaide Fringe Festival also indicated that level of participation affects the social outcomes gained, with those participating to a greater degree achieving higher involvement and increased identity awareness. This is demonstrated through a model which aims to illustrate how an event impact an individual based on their role during the event. Originality/value – This paper applies two leisure concepts in order to analyse the impact of events. Activity involvement is a concept which examines the importance of the activity in the participant's life. Also of importance to young people is how activities contribute to their identities, especially because they are in a transitional period of their lives.


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