Reflections on the “social return on investment” perspective
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https://doi.org/10.24306/plnxt/50Keywords:
Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), Complex Urban Landscape (CUL), social enterprise, SROIAbstract
Considering that a relevant challenge for social enterprises is to assess their social impacts, this paper approaches this issue by investigating cases that exemplify engagement in culture-led regeneration processes. Assuming the paradigm of ‘Complex Urban Landscape’ (CUL) as a holistic approach focused on the role of relationships, and conceiving the social enterprise as a hybrid organisation potentially affecting the urban context, the author presents a reflection on one of the most-used and much-debated social impact evaluation methods, the Social Return On Investment (SROI). The research deals with three main challenges: the difficulties in integrating cultural heritage as commons within urban planning and practices; the potential role of social enterprises to transmit cultural value through experiences of culture-led regeneration processes; and the exigencies of planning and developing social impact evaluation capable of critically observing and narrating the theory of change proposed by social enterprises.
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