Investigating means-end decoupling in social enterprises and the (possible) role of social impact measurement/management

Setting up new and engaged research collaborations across universities and with societal partners can be very time consuming. The support and corresponding seed funding from UNIC4ER facilitates the opportunity to gain first insights and from there, write a comprehensive and stakeholder-driven research proposal.

Focus is to develop a research proposal in which the parties want to investigate the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives by enterprises, the gap between impact-ambitions and impact-realization and the (institutional) barriers at play. Special attention will be paid on sustainability efforts by organizations and intensifying pressure on organizations to account for their social and environmental effects.

Since the growing number of social enterprises in the Netherlands, Turkey as well as the European Union in general and several policies stimulate this type of entrepreneurship, there is a growing need for researchers to contribute and inform if, when and under which conditions these enterprises achieve the desired social impact with their sustainability efforts. The -(re)sparked- academic debate on means-end decoupling might shine a light on the gap between impact-ambitions and impact-achievements of enterprises.