Social Impact--a New Conceptual Approach

Abstract : This article develops a new conceptual approach to assessing the social impact created by social purpose organisations. Such assessments are subject to (1) the measurement problem, i.e. the challenge of translating social impact into measurable components; (2) the attribution problem, i.e. confounding within complex social reality. All three current conceptual approaches to social impact, at least in part, fail to address the two problems: (1) Cost-benefit Analysis, (2) Life-satisfaction approaches, and (3) the Capability Approach. There is another way of measuring social impact though: Social purpose organisations produce a variety of capitals that enable final social outcomes. Assessing these capital forms can serve as an alternative unit of measurement. The article deals with various capital forms but focuses on social, political and cultural capital and shows how the ‘capital based approach’ to social impact can be operationalised by drawing on an investigation of social capital in living facilities for senior citizens. It outlines how the approach can solve both assessment problems.

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Designing Communication Hierarchies to Elicit Information

Abstract : This paper studies how a manager can elicit employees' information by designing a hierarchical communication network. The manager decides who communicates with whom, and in which order, where communication takes the form of “cheap talk” (Crawford and Sobel, 1982). I show that the optimal network is shaped by two competing forces: an intermediation force that calls for grouping employees together and an uncertainty force that favours separating them. The manager optimally divides employees into groups of similar bias. Under simple conditions, the optimal network features a single intermediary who communicates directly to the manager.

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Pricing Carbon. a Climate Coalition As a Complement to Un Negotiations.

Abstract : This paper analyzes insufficiencies in UN negotiations and identifies a set of characteristics that would make a complementary institutional design efficient. A coalition among nations with high climate ambitions is suggested. Such a coalition should introduce measures that leaders can control and be accountable for—measures that are short-term and few-dimensional, and that incentivize efficient reductions, prevent leakages to outside nations, and sanction non-compliance. A coalition should also provide incentives to outside emitters and encourage new members. A Climate Coalition that harmonizes minimum national carbon prices (i.e. carbon taxes), introduces a common carbon tariff, and welcomes new members would meet the criteria and have the potential to emerge at a global level.

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Governance of Perspectives in a Partnership Society

Abstract : The Perspective Partnership vehicle allows for comparing widely different organizations that are all transformations of a partnership. It also characterizes these organizations by the degree in which they focus on businesslike economic values and resources, on cooperative or emotional human values and resources, or on imperial mentality public values and resources. The observation that any organization contains a composition or an amalgamation of these identities makes it hard to govern such a hybrid organization. This hybridity of the partners’ perspectives and identities, can be resolved by making a partner accountable in her appropriate behavioral domain. For that purpose the fiscal regimes related to profit and non-profit enterprises have performed satisfactorily for some time. But there is more. The Partnership Perspective modeling vehicle allows also for the expansion and evolution of the partnerships, by identifying and analyzing specialized partnerships, that are internally ordered according to the level of influence: public, social, and private, or according to cross-sector influence: the cross-sector partnerships. An input-output table of values and services is constructed, resulting in a well-being or ‘relational growth spiral’ in the evolving societal partnership. These partnerships together form the hierarchical societal partnership.

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