Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and social enterprises are increasingly under pressure to justify their use of resources and report their impact on society. Frameworks that monetize social value such as social return on investment (SROI) have emerged as a response. The existing literature highlights many benefits and technical challenges of SROI, but largely ignores strategic and organizational learning aspects. This paper explores the use of SROI in an NPO conducting cultural heritage preservation. By analyzing the challenges managers face in agreeing on a reliable (“correct”) computation of SROI and in assessing the validity and relevance (“appropriateness”) of SROI, we seek to understand the challenges and boundaries of SROI. Challenges with a reliable computation of SROI are identifying stakeholders, the choice of proxies, the time horizons, and deadweight factors. Challenges with an appropriate SROI calculation are comparability, subjectivity, legitimacy, and resource utility. We argue that SROI calculations might not be reliable or appropriate in organizations with fuzzy purposes, broad value creation goals, broad target groups, very individual or subjective proxies, strongly lagged outcomes, complex or unobservable causality, and with lack of legitimacy among stakeholders. Organizations should not trustingly adopt SROI without being aware of these limitations.

中文翻译：

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实施社会投资回报的挑战与界限：对其情境适当性的质疑

非营利组织（NPO）和社会企业正面临越来越大的压力，要求其合理使用资源并报告其对社会的影响。作为回应，已经出现了将社会价值货币化的框架，例如社会投资回报率（SROI）。现有文献强调了SROI的许多好处和技术挑战，但在很大程度上忽略了战略和组织学习方面。本文探讨了在进行文化遗产保护的非营利组织中SROI的使用。通过分析经理在就可靠（“正确”）SROI计算达成一致并评估SROI的有效性和相关性（“适当性”）方面面临的挑战，我们试图了解SROI的挑战和边界。可靠地计算SROI所面临的挑战是确定利益相关者，代理的选择，时间范围，和无谓因素。正确计算SROI所面临的挑战是可比性，主观性，合法性和资源实用性。我们认为，在具有模糊目的，广泛的价值创造目标，广泛的目标群体，非常个别或主观的代理，非常滞后的结果，复杂或不可观察的因果关系以及利益相关者缺乏合法性的组织中，SROI计算可能不可靠或不适当。在不了解这些限制的情况下，组织不应信任地采用SROI。个体或主观代理，结局严重滞后，复杂或不可观察的因果关系以及利益相关者之间缺乏合法性。在不了解这些限制的情况下，组织不应信任地采用SROI。个体或主观代理，结局严重滞后，复杂或不可观察的因果关系以及利益相关者之间缺乏合法性。在不了解这些限制的情况下，组织不应信任地采用SROI。