Developing Sustainability & Scalability Metrics through Qualitative Evaluation of Social Entrepreneurship Ventures

Social entrepreneurship is known to have a significant impact on social and ecological sustainability of a region. In order to evaluate the success metrics of social enterprises under different contextual instances, a qualitative evaluation of a sample of social enterprises was carried out. The basic aim was to assess the individual as well as collective impact of each parameter on the social and ecological stability on sustainability. By analyzing the evolutionary progress of these ventures over the last 3 years, an attempt has been made to define new boundaries that impact scalability of social entrepreneurship ventures. The study involved in depth analysis of the selected ventures in existence for more than 3 years, in terms of their strategy, leadership, scalability pattern, social impact, economic viability, self sustainability, community involvement and evolution pattern as well as cognitive and behavioral patterns of its leadership. Extensive field visits were carried out to evaluate the social impact as well as gather public opinion about the contribution of the venture on its immediate neighborhood, to assess the economic value added and the change in the spending patterns of the people of the region during the 3 years of existence of the social enterprise. Another study sample was formed comprising ventures which could not survive and ventures that failed to scale up within 3 years of their existence. This study reflected the prominent barriers of success of social ventures and factors that inhibit scalability. The selected units formed a diverse mix with no significant correlation to any study parameter. The study findings confirm some of the existing theoretical constructs about scalability of social enterprises and their impact on sustainability and also develops new constructs based on the overall analysis of the two samples. The study confirms the existence of a significant correlation of individual and collective impact of innovation, leadership, community involvement, finance, marketing, natural capital, education and communication on scalability & sustainability. The research study enabled us to develop a new model of sustainable development through social entrepreneurship termed EFFECTIVE. This model can be used to develop an impact assessment tool to help various agencies to prioritize and optimize the allocation of resources over different projects. The study also enables the relative assessment of social ventures on a community or a region and correlates the success metrics with the demographic profile. The study reflects an interesting comparison of community development through micro credit and through external commercial mechanisms like marketing and finance channeled to self help groups through a charismatic leadership. This study can be used as a base for further research on sustainability and community development through application and integration of various strategic, management, behavioral, cognitive and ecological aspects with the demographic profile of a particular region