Summary
The question is: could we say that social performance management is nothing else than the achievement of a micro finance institution social return on investment? Translating this concept into macro level, can we say that social performance in microfinance means the achievement of a country’s inclusive financial system?
Analysis
In our view there is the risk that the terminology (social enterprise) that has been coined in a laboratory could complicate the understanding of what is going on in the field. Are we going to give a name to an unborn business? Instead of discussing about social enterprise, social return on investment, bottom-line enterprise, double-bottom line enterprise, etc, it could be better to say, “Enterprise socially oriented”. Indeed at the end of the day we have to measure the degree of satisfaction in terms of social objectives and to evaluate the impact of the intervention.
Under the pressure of the world wide financial crisis the banking systems have been reviewing the credit policies and evaluating the potentiality of the micro credit market for the simple reason that the micro lenders are closer to the real economy.
We do believe that a proper use of the social management concept together with taking a reasonable credit risk by the bankers could be a tremendous opportunity of doing bank business and reaching an inclusive financial system, which is a very good answer to fight the world wide economic crisis.
Ascanio Graziosi
http://www.cambridgedata.com/GraziosiAscanio/
