The Relevance of Impact Assessment in Nascent and Small-Scale Social Entrepreneurship

This paper studies how impact assessment can be used in social entrepreneurship to support learning and improve sustainability impact. Drawing on a two-stage qualitative study in Sweden, the research combines exploratory interviews with consultants in an entrepreneurial support organisation and early-stage entrepreneurs with in-depth interviews with social entrepreneurs. It shows that impact ambitions are shaped by both internal motives and external expectations, but that assessment practices are constrained by limited resources, knowledge, and stage of enterprise development. Key challenges relate to identifying negative or unintended impacts and conceptualising impacts as long-term and systemic. While entrepreneurial support and stakeholder interaction can broaden impact perspectives, both entrepreneurs and consultants struggle to translate established frameworks into practical applications, suggesting that barriers to impact assessment also relate to the support system. The findings indicate that, under such conditions, prioritising basic impact management over comprehensive assessment may be more appropriate. An implication is to apply a staged approach to the result chain and materiality analysis that can evolve with organisational capacity and stakeholder demand.