Study of the Performance Measurement Tools in Social Enterprises with Special Reference to Blended Value Accounting

Abstract

Over the past five to ten years, there has been an explosion of interest around social entrepreneurship, strategic philanthropy, sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, socially responsible investing, and other social investing. Scores of organizations have been launched to advance these issues, many business articles addressing these topics have been published, and new programs have been cropping up at conferences, business schools and universities. All these efforts have in common the pursuit of more than simple economic value and more than basic social impact. They all are advancing what may be viewed as a shared agenda of simultaneously valuing social equity, environmental sustainability and economic development. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the emergent performance reporting practices used by social entrepreneurs in terms of their institutional settings and strategic objectives. These reporting practices not only account for financial performance but also disclose more nuanced and contingent social and environmental impacts and outcomes. Furthermore, they act as symbolic objects expressing the market orientation of many socially entrepreneurial organizations in that they aim to provide more complete and transparent disclosure of a variety of performance impacts. Conceptually, this paper draws upon approaches developed within the sociology of accounting as institutional practice.