Social Impact Accounting

Abstract

This thesis investigates how social purpose organisations collect and communicate information on their social impact through social impact accounting . It seeks to understand how different logics shape the current practice of social impact accounting, and how this practice may be shaped by social investment and standardisation. Adopting a methodological approach based on Dewey s classical pragmatism, social impact accounting is studied through four sequential research stages using a qualitative, thematic approach. Empirically, this thesis draws from multiple data sources, including a systematic review of practice guides for social impact accounting, and interviews with professionals working as preparers and users of social impact accounting from social purpose organisations, philanthropic funding institutions, social investment firms, government, and specialist intermediaries. The data are used to map how different logics of accountability, accounting and evaluation manifest in the practice of social impact accounting. Perspectives from users and preparers are shown to be shaped predominantly by logics associated with resource acquisition and accountability to funders. However, this thesis also highlights a powerful stream of alternative logics that emphasise the role of social impact accounting in sharing knowledge and improving performance within organisations, as well as across the social purpose sector. These are shown to have different implications for the desired content and qualities of social impact accounts. A Social Impact Accounting Framework is developed from these findings and used to further analyse the emerging areas of social investment and standardisation. Social investors are found to have similar expectations of social impact accounting to preparers and users, and their use of social impact information is characterised as diverse and pragmatic. Further, in the context of a proposed standard, this thesis investigates the public interest of standardised social impact accounting and shows that the proposed standard (ED270) focuses on a limited part of the complex practice of social impact accounting, and raises questions about the appropriateness of government as a standard-setter in this context. Finally, this thesis concludes by showing that a failure of standards to account for the complexity of the social purpose sector risks unintended consequences and simply increases the already onerous and bureaucratic reporting requirements faced by social purpose organisations.