A performance tool for policy-makers to monitor the dual objective of social enterprises: A data envelopment analysis approach

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  • Matthias Staessens
  • Pieter Jan T Kerstens
  • Johan Bruneel
  • Laurens Cherchye
The importance of performance measurement for social enterprises has been widely acknowledged in recent years, leading to a significant increase in related studies (see, e.g., Maas & Liket, 2011; Millar & Hall, 2012). Social enterprises pursue social and economic missions simultaneously, and hence need to achieve goal duality, combining social and economic performance. Performance benchmarking should therefore also reflect this goal duality. Although current measurement methods are useful management tools for individual organizations, they do not offer the standardized numerical outputs necessary to undertake consistent comparative analyses across organizations (Rotheroe & Richards, 2007; Kroeger & Weber, 2014), and lack applicability in practice to enable policy-makers to compare the performance of supported organizations. Importantly, performance measurement plays a key role not only at the organizational level, but also at the level of policy-makers. These stakeholders widely acknowledge the importance of standardized performance tools to measure the accountability of social enterprises. After all, it is at this level that it is possible to oversee and compare the performance of organizations receiving support (Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014).
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMeasuring and Controlling Sustainability : Spanning Theory and Practice
EditorsAdam Lindgreen, Christine Vallaster, Shumaila Yousofzai, Bernhard Hirsch
Number of pages20
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherTaylor & Francis
Publication date2018
Pages102-121
Chapter2.5
ISBN (Electronic)9781315401898
Publication statusPublished - 2018

ID: 203331675