How Organizations Create Social Value

by Manda Salls

A recent study on the factors that contribute to successful high-performance social enterprises finds a connection between enterprises that link economic value with social value.

This was the focus of a study presented at the colloquium, "The Social Enterprise Knowledge Network: Seeking Success in Social Enterprise," ending August 1. This two-year study was the second carried out by SEKN since it was founded in 2001 as a research partnership between HBS and leading business schools in Latin America and Spain. SEKN's research centered on smart practices by social and business organizations in Latin America and Spain.

This research will be published in Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies book series through Harvard University Press.
The goal of the colloquium is to help leaders in businesses and society create social value for their communities, while in parallel strengthening their organizations.

The study centered on forty organizations—twenty NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and twenty corporations—deemed to be high performers in social enterprise (SE). Through interviews, field research, and comparative analysis, HBS professor James Austin, HBS senior researcher Ezequiel A. Reficco, UNIANDES professor Roberto Gutiérrez, and INCAE professor Enrique Ogliastri presented what the SEKN researchers found to be smart practices for organizations wanting to create social value.

The researchers stressed the importance of synergies between Economic Value (EV) and Social Value (SV), calling them "two sides of the same coin." By aligning EV and SV, both nonprofits and corporations can: ...

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organisations
management