Abstract
Despite the importance of social impact to social entrepreneurship research, standards for measuring
an organization’s social impact are underdeveloped on both theoretical and empirical
grounds. We identify a sample of 71 relevant papers from leading (FT50) business journals that
examine, conceptually or empirically, the measurement of social impact. We first describe the
breadth of definitions, data sources, and operationalizations of social impact. Based on this analysis,
we generate a typology of four approaches to conceptualizing social impact, which we use to
organize insights and recommendations regarding improved measurement of the social impact of
entrepreneurial ventures.
Keywords
social entrepreneurship, social impact, social value, social performance, performance
measurement
