Social Performance Management Research Articles

A Social Performance Management Framework for Islamic Microfinance Institutions

The Islamic microfinance industry is in its infancy and it faces various challenges, including the lack of social performance management tools customised to the specific nature of the industry. Even though managing the performance of microfinance institutions has gained momentum with the development of several tools and techniques, the existing tools are inadequate for addressing the needs of IMFIs. Hence, this paper seeks to conceptualise a social performance management framework that is appropriate for IMFIs, to help them accomplish their financial, social and spiritual mission. It is argued that the spiritual dimensions and elements should be integrated into IMFIs’ social performance management systems, specifically in their mission statement, governance structure, internal systems and activities, as well as in their measures of output and impact.

Social performance rating in Co-operatives

Social performance is a management process capable of making corporate performance more inclusive, effective and fair. For almost two centuries, co-operatives are perceived as instruments of social change that are well positioned to lead in social performance through their internationally accepted values and principles. However, due to the potential importance of economic objectives to stakeholders’ welfare, like in most firms, financial parameters often overshadow social performance standards in co-operatives. Social performance research in co-operatives is also scanty since most studies relate to financial performance. This study surveyed managers from 100 Savings and credit co-operatives societies in Kenya on the extent operations in co-operatives reflect social performance dimensions. Extant literature revealed social performance management as a catalyst for economic performance of a firm. In particular, the study identified social performance as a key value driver to superior performance and social performance management an essential key performance indicator to any enterprise desiring to “doing good” to the community. Data analysis found co-operatives low in social performance as they do not meet the indicators by 45%, partially meets the indicators by 22% and only meets the indicators by 33%. The finding reveals that co-operatives should not claim as exemplary in social performance based merely on social and community orientation. Thus, the expose is an exhibit that many organizations may not be practicing the social ideals they claim to uphold or represent. The study is expected to help co-operatives to improve on ‘what good the organizations are doing with their profit to people and the planet’ which consequently would improve sustainable performance and competitiveness.

The Moderating Effect of Social Performance Management on Relationship Marketing and Customer Retention

The Moderating Effect of Social Performance Management on Relationship Marketing and Customer Retention

Self-care and entrepreneurism: an ethnography of soft skills development for higher education staff

ABSTRACTDespite the ubiquity of staff soft skills programmes, few studies have examined why and how academic and corporate services staff utilise these programmes for self-care/governance. This study reports on findings from an ethnography of soft skills learning and development programmes (LDPs) in a UK university, focusing on interviews with programme participants and facilitators. Results suggest that, as social worlds with neoliberal directives, LDPs promote various self-governance activities in the form of entrepreneurism and novel, corporate versions of self-care. Time on LDPs was seen as a chance to, ‘put oneself first,’ examine career options and cultivate sought-after attributes, including self-confidence and assertiveness. Social networking and performance management also emerged as significant issues. Career development was important for all participants; however, perceptions of how to realise this differed. Based on our findings, we propose three types of work-related performance – ‘career nomad,’ ‘reluctant entrepreneur,’ and ‘course hopper’ – constituting a typology for understanding social worlds inhabited by contemporary university professionals. Our study suggests that self-care ‘technologies’ have multiple, competing functions in continuing professional education. While LDPs can help professionals navigate paths through increasingly challenging organisations, their entrepreneurial ethos and content reflect the market interests they serve.

Shaping the organisational context for corporate entrepreneurship and performance in Iran: the interplay between social context and performance management

Prior research highlighted the importance of an organisational context stimulating autonomous behaviour when trying to increase levels of corporate entrepreneurship. From a social exchange perspective, we argue that firms in developing countries need to complement such supportive practices with performance-oriented practices. Our findings indicate that Iranian firms with an organisational context characterised by an interaction of social context and performance management have more engagement in corporate entrepreneurship, and that corporate entrepreneurship mediated the relationship between the organisational context and firm performance. This provides a better understanding of the way firms in developing economies can shape their organisational context to promote corporate entrepreneurship in order to achieve better firm performance.

How Much Voice for Borrowers? Restricted Feedback and Recursivity in Microfinance

AbstractThis paper studies the governance of microfinance and asks about its recursivity: whether the system is responsive to changes prompted by feedback from borrowers or not. It draws on Hirschmann's heuristic of exit and voice and the idea of participation in development, to examine three channels of feedback from borrowers to rule‐makers and ask to what extent they have facilitated or restricted recursivity in microfinance. The standardisation of microfinance along a financial template is shown to have created very open flows of financial information, useful for monitoring clients' exit, but not granting them voice. The more recent creation of systems for social performance management and pursuing ‘responsible' microfinance, however, has not resulted in similarly robust information flows, because, despite intentions to capture client satisfaction and feedback, these channels are severely restricted. They offer borrowers little chance to practically exercise voice and convey feedback which affects the rules. Recursivity studies, it is suggested, might integrate participation and exit/voice frameworks to explore the prospects of feedback from grassroots rule‐subjects and better understand the factors that can restrict it. For microfinance, it is suggested that government regulation and clients' collective action could be necessary where the sector's governance system shows itself to be unresponsive.

A Study on Features, Delivery System Type of Social Security Services and Financial Performance Management: Focused on Self - Assessment of Budgetary Programs

A Study on Features, Delivery System Type of Social Security Services and Financial Performance Management: Focused on Self - Assessment of Budgetary Programs

Corporate social performance and portfolio management

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to assess the existence of a relationship between socially responsible behavior of companies and price trends of their stocks.Design/methodology/approach– The analysis is conducted by empirically testing data of environmental, social and governance ratings of a sample of European firms between December 2005 and December 2010. A disaggregate analysis is also performed to infer whether a specific contribution of all the different factors that make a business socially responsible can be observed in the value generation process.Findings– The results show that the application of a sustainable approach are successful in creating value, both to the investor and the issuer companies.Research limitations/implications– Findings of this work are significant with respect to portfolio management, because they suggest, on one hand, the myopia of a short-term approach (short-termism), and on the other hand, the importance of sustainable investing.Originality/value– This paper focusses on the integration that has led many international groups to explicitly include extra-financial risk factors in their decision-making processes, by applying the by the four-factor model on a brand new data set.

How to Apply the Sustainability Balanced Scorecard Concept

Abstract Many successful enterprises have identified a large significance of non-economic determinants of business and their influence on competitive success. Social responsible behaviour becomes an imperative of modern business environment. Corporate social responsibility emphasizes more effective environmental and social performance management so that its influence on financial performance becomes more and more obvious. In that sense, the aim of this paper is to point out the theoretical foundations of the Sustainability Balanced Scorecard (SBS) concept, and to demonstrate an example of enterprise, which will show how to develop SBS in the aim of its successful application.

GOVERNANCE MECHANISMS, SOCIAL PERFORMANCE DISCLOSURE AND PERFORMANCE IN MICROFINANCE: DOES LEGAL STATUS MATTER?

ABSTRACTIn this paper we examine diverse governance mechanisms implemented by microfinance institutions, as well as their relationships with both social and financial performance, using a database obtained from the MIX, consisting of MFIs reporting data both on financial and social performance. We find that some governance mechanisms are significantly different among MFIs depending on their legal status. MFIs with NGO status have more diversity in their boards, adhere more to fair practices related to their human resources, and pay more attention to training in social performance management. Furthermore, we find that NGOs perform better at a social level (serve more clients; reach more poor clients; a large fraction of their borrowers are women). We find that external governance mechanisms have little or no effect, while board characteristics consistently and significantly affect social performance.

Taking stock of the Nigerian microfinance banking sector: lessons from an assessment of 25 MFBs in five states

Microfinance practices in Nigeria are unique relative to other countries. Although NGO-microfinance institutions are present, regulated, deposit-taking microfinance banks (MFBs) dominate the landscape. With roughly 870 MFBs licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the microfinance banking sector is large but still quite young – established in 2005. It was within this environment that the GIZ ‘Pro-poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria (SEDIN)’ programme commenced a CAMEL & Social Performance Management (SPM) rating of 25 MFBs in five states. The results of the rating provided excellent holistic insight into the current practices of Nigerian MFBs and displayed a number of curious, at times worrying, trends within the sector. Subsequently, this stock-taking paper attempts to discuss what key policy implications may resonate from these findings.

Importance of Implementing the Green Economy Concept and Its Impact on Financial Performance of an Enterprise

In the modern business environment, sustainable development is largely achieved through the implementation of the concept of the green economy, both at the global and national as well as at the corporate level. The motive for the application of this concept at the level of enterprise can be found in the numerous benefits and positive business experiences of companies that have already decided to take that step. Although there are different opinions regarding the character and direction of the following relation, it is stated that the most important reason for implementation of this concept is possible positive correlation with achieving financial performances and competitive advantage of the enterprise-implementator. One way of understanding this influence is through monitoring the implementation of environmental strategy, or through monitoring the process of environmental performance and social responsibility performance management.

Social Support and Performance Management in an R&D-Oriented Company

Social Support and Performance Management in an R&D-Oriented Company

Corporate Social Performance and Stakeholder Dialogue Management

AbstractThis study analyses how firms act with regard to social responsibility from the perspective of Stakeholder Theory. The objective is to empirically analyse the importance of communication with stakeholders for social responsibility. This involves the establishment of a structural equation model that enables analysis of the empirical relationship between firms' degree of communication with stakeholders and the effectiveness of their corporate social responsibility, measured by corporate social performance (CSP). We adopt a Bayesian approach that enables exact inferences concerning the model's parameters and handles missing data by random imputations, thus increasing the study's reliability. The results obtained from a sample of 416 Spanish organisations show the importance of interacting and establishing channels of communication with different stakeholders in order to identify their specific demands and expectations. Indeed, communication with stakeholders helps firms to improve their CSP programmes and activities. We can thus conclude that failure to establish good communication channels could have a negative effect on social responsibility. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Combining social and financial performance: A paradox?

This paper makes the case that when microfinance institutions exhibit strong financial performance, particularly if there is a well-planned social performance strategy in place, the results for social performance are also better. Studies have suggested this in the past but their conclusions were based on incomplete data. This analysis draws on 2006-2011 data taken from 344 evaluations of 295 MFIs in 51 countries that have a total outreach of more than 12 million borrowers. The conclusion is that the double bottom line is no ‘mission impossible’ but can be achieved when trade-offs and synergies are combined cleverly, following a well-planned social performance management strategy.

Responsible investment in microfinance: The value added of social audits for the fund managers

Microfinance's success in terms of scale, poverty alleviation, and return on investment has drawn the attention of financial markets. At the same time, microfinance is under increasing scrutiny as controversies abound over the risks of overindebtedness, microfinance's actual impact on clients, and other contentious issues. Among some investors, the result has been a call to ‘go back to the basics’ - client-centred institutions that offer products that make a difference. Social performance is therefore becoming an integral part of assessments of microfinance institutions (MFIs), and is gaining ground in the investment world. What are microfinance investors doing to systematize social performance management at the MFI level and to improve their own practices as responsible investors? What tools and approaches are being used? This article introduces the approach of social audit through the example of the Social Audit tool for Microfinance investment vehicles (SAM). This tool was designed to analyse investmen...

The relationship between corporate social performance and earnings management

AbstractThis study assesses the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and earnings management. Based on a sample of 109 Canadian companies drawn from the Michael Jantzi Research Associates – Canadian Social Investment Database for the years 2004 and 2005, our findings corroborate the multiple objectives hypothesis suggesting that the level of CSP is positively associated with earnings management. Using individual measures of CSP, we find a positive association between firm's CSP ratings related to environment and employees, and the earnings management activities. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Individual budgets and transformational change

Abstract Oldham Council was chosen to become one of 13 pilot sites leading the implementation of individual budgets. It is currently well advanced in introducing individual budgets, with over 1,000 people having received an indicative amount and over 500 people having agreed support plans and self-directing their support. In this paper, the author outlines the challenges that face local authorities in the implementation of individual budgets and raises questions about some longer-term impacts of them upon commissioning, social care services and performance management.

Mainstreaming Microfinance: Social Performance Management or Mission Drift?

What scope is there for the pursuit of explicit development goals in the context of increasing integration of specialized microfinance and commercial banking sectors? This question and the idea of mission drift is first analyzed using a model that distinguishes between institutions’ financial and social performance possibilities, preferences, and assessment systems. The model is used to review findings from action research with an international sample of poverty oriented microfinance institutions that suggest some simple steps for improved social performance management. It is then used to illustrate the relationship between social and financial performance more widely across the retail financial services sector, and to offer pointers for more policy analysis at this level.

Are financial and social objectives mutually exclusive? The experience of AMK Cambodia

Cambodian microfinance is a financial success at present. In an increasingly competitive environment, properly designed, in-house social performance management (SPM) initiatives can provide a strategic edge to an institution's operations. This article examines the efforts of Angkor Mikroheranhvatho Kampuchea (AMK), a Cambodian microfinance institution (MFI), to balance financial and social objectives, and discusses some early indications from an in-house SPM initiative that AMK is trying to set up. Some of the information from the SPM initiative is being used for AMK's operations and strategy in disbursement planning and product design. The challenges in internally managed social research lie in integrating the SPM framework into management decision-making, and in maintaining research quality within acceptable cost levels. The institution is hopeful that once the framework is fully established, it will be possible to merge commercially viable microfinance with improved social performance in a symbiotic relationship.