Over the past twenty years, the issue of performance measurement in Social Enterprises (SEs) has gained increasing relevance among researchers and practitioners. From an academic perspective, there has been an explosion in methodologies and tools for assessing social performance and impact, but with little systematic analysis and comparison across different approaches. From a practitioner perspective, SEs needs to start measuring their performances in a systemic way, in order to support decision-making and ensure accountability towards their stakeholders. In this context, this paper aims to contribute to the state of the art literature by developing an approach that could be applied to / by SEs to measure their results with respect to social, environmental and economic impacts. The proposed approach consists in a 'general' PMS model for SEs-i.e. the performance dimensions that should be measured-and a stepwise method to be used by SEs to develop their own PMS. For sake of clarification, the proposed approach is applied to the case of an Italian SE competing in the energy sector to develop a set of key performance indicators.

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Despite the general hype, Social Impact Bonds’ (SIB) rate of adoption is still modest. The mismatch between widespread interest and actual adoption raises interesting questions as to whether we are still in the early adoption phase of SIBs and massive diffusion is yet to come, or we are observing a marginal phenomenon. In order to shed some light on this issue, the paper provides a review of the cases in which the SIB model has been already applied, exploring the specific configuration employed, with the purpose to identify regular configuration patterns and their deviation from a prototypical structure

This paper performs a critical analysis of the financial instruments that can be employed to fund social innovation,\ud with a specific focus on social tech start-ups that develop and deploy technology-driven solutions to\ud address social needs in a financially sustainable manner. The paper analyses how these start-ups can access\ud financing, the barriers to financing that these organisations experience and the financial instruments that are\ud most suitable to address their financial needs. Social tech start-ups have many points of overlap with high-tech\ud start-ups in terms of the barriers they encounter to financing in different lifecycle stages. Still, the institutional\ud solutions that are commonly exploited by high-tech start-ups for growth are not enough to support social tech\ud start-ups to scale. Therefore, we introduce the concept of SII and discuss its potential contribution to the social\ud tech finance landscape. Then, using the case of social tech start-ups as paradigmatic of the broader problem of\ud financing mechanisms for social innovation, we formulate a research agenda, including directions for research\ud and theoretical development in the field of SII

This paper aims to perform a review of different accounting frameworks, including indicators and metrics applicable to the social business sector, discussing the strengths and the weaknesses of different approaches in relationship to their ability to respond to objectives and interests of different stakeholders in the social business ecosystem. Then, the paper discusses the key role that indicators and metrics could play in the light of the transformations that the social business sector is witnessing, such as the emergence of new financial supply chains and the entrance of new relevant players