Dr Yally Avrahampour

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

This course provides students with a grounding in the management literatures relating to social enterprises and the measurement and management of the performance of social enterprises, in three sections.

In the first section, the course introduces social enterprises as hybrid organisations, that is, as organisations that have the dual objective of both achieving financial return and social impact and that differ from commercial organizations which have a single objective relating to financial return. The course begins with a focus on markets and market failure, notably externalities and public goods, and introduces the view that social enterprises address market failure. A discussion of costs, costing techniques and the scaling up of the social enterprise closes this section.

In the second section, the course introduces distinctions between integrated and supplemental social accounting, monetized and non-monetized impact measures, activity versus outcome measures and residual performance measures versus return on investment measures. The course introduces impact measures, including Social Return on Investment (SROI) and Expanded Value Added Statements.

In the third section, the course returns to the strategy and governance of social enterprises including Porter & Kramer’s work on Shared Value, the Resource Based View and stakeholder governance theory. The course considers the setting of standards relating to sustainability.  The theory and tools covered in this course inform core courses, including the SIE: Dissertation courseand can orient further study by informing the selection of elective courses.   

Course Objectives 

Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to: 

• Distinguish between alternative theories of the setting of strategy by social enterprises and appraise the merits of each theory. 
• Compare alternative social accounting approaches used for the purpose of reporting the performance of a social enterprise and evaluate the merits of each approach. 
• Apply techniques from social accounting to measure impact in such a way that would inform (a) the internal management of the social enterprise and (b) external reporting of performance.  
• Contribute to the successful functioning of a team working on a group project, clearly and fairly demarcating roles and apportioning tasks, to develop a solution to the problem set out in the project brief.

15 hours of seminars and 20 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Theoretical material and analytical frameworks from accounting and economics respectively of relevance to social entrepreneurs will be taught in the lecture slots, while the seminars will cover a relevant case study each week. Although the course covers two distinct disciplines, there will be an effort, where possible, to treat the issues in an integrated manner.

In addition, students are expected to attend two introductory sessions, each lasting two hours.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Formative essay in the AT. 

Each week we draw on a variety of required and further readings.  The readings outlined below provide a selection of these readings that will be covered in the course.  

• Barney, J. B. 2018. Why resource‐based theory’s model of profit appropriation must incorporate a stakeholder perspective. Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 39: No. 8: 3305–3325.  
• Logue, D. (2019) Theories of social innovation. Edward Elgar Publishing.  
• Porter, M. E. & Kramer, M. (2011). Creating Shared Value: How to reinvent capitalism—and unleash a wave of innovation and growth Harvard Business Review Vol. 89, No. 1-2:1-17.  
• Rawhouser, H., Cummings, M.  ;Newberts, S. (2019) Social Impact Measurement: Current Approaches and Future Directions. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice Vol. 43 No. 1:82-115.  

Suggested pre course reading:   

• Banerjee, A.V. and Duflo, E. (2011), Poor Economics, BBS Publications. 
• Cohen, R. (2020) Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Achieve Real Change, Random House. 
• Estrin, S. Laidler, D. and Dietrich, M. (2008) Microeconomics (6th Edition), Pearson; chapter 25, p. 575-586. 
• Nicholls, J., Lawlor, E., Neitzert, E. and Goodspeed, T. (2009) A Guide to Social Return on Investment. London: Cabinet Office. 

Course participation (10%).

Essay (90%).

Class participation is based around student group presentations of cases.

For detailed assessment information, including all deadlines and timings, please see the relevant course Moodle page. Assessment timings will be available at the start of each term.