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Fellow SIMians, I'm hoping for some very specific insight.  I'm team teaching a course this semester on assessing organizational performance.  We want our (MS) students to be able to locate relevant information and effectively assess the financial, social, and environmental performance of a public firm.  My duties are to cover the social performance aspect (though next year, I'll be taking over the entire course).  I have two sessions.  In the first session, I'll be addressing conceptual issues to breed understanding of the relevance and importance of social performance, and pushing the "business case" notion that attending to stakeholder issues can contribute to financial performance.  That's not so tough.  In the second session, though, I'm to teach ways to measure performance on relevant social (i.e., stakeholder) dimensions.  Ideally, they'd be as straightforward as measuring financial performance.  Of course, they're not.  So, my question is, are there some generally accepted or standardized measures of social performance that I should be covering (like employee turnover, etc), and if so, is there a good guide for teachers on how to do all this measuring?  Or are we still at the stage of ad hoc measures, like listings on best places to work, shop, etc?

Thanks,

Mike

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Michael L. Barnett, PhD

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">University of South</st1:city> <st1:state w:st="on">Florida</st1:state></st1:place>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Business Administration</st1:placename></st1:place>

Department of Management & Organization

<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">4202 E. Fowler Avenue</st1:address></st1:street>, BSN 3213

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Tampa</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">FL</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">33620-5500</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

Phone: 813-974-1727

Fax: 813-974-1734

E-mail: mbarnett@coba.usf.edu

Webpage: http://www.coba.usf.edu/barnett

View my research on my SSRN Author page:

<http://ssrn.com/author=414796>

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Mike (and others) – I have had great success in using the KLD reports for my MBA social audit project, where the students are asked to assess various stakeholder relations using the Davenport 20 Principles for Corporate Citizenship (in the course textbook).  I would be happy to send to anyone interested the assignment.  The KLD reports are expensive, in my mind.  But, we negotiated a good price for multiple reports to be purchased so I could run the project across all three graduate school semesters, using different industries in different terms to minimize the tendency to "borrow" information from previous term projects.

Let me know if any of this is interesting.

-----Original Message-----
From: Social Issues in Management Listserv [mailto:SIM@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Barnett, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 12:42 PM
To: SIM@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: [SIM] Measuring Social Performance

Fellow SIMians, I'm hoping for some very specific insight.  I'm team teaching a course this semester on assessing organizational performance.  We want our (MS) students to be able to locate relevant information and effectively assess the financial, social, and environmental performance of a public firm.  My duties are to cover the social performance aspect (though next year, I'll be taking over the entire course).  I have two sessions.  In the first session, I'll be addressing conceptual issues to breed understanding of the relevance and importance of social performance, and pushing the "business case" notion that attending to stakeholder issues can contribute to financial performance.  That's not so tough.  In the second session, though, I'm to teach ways to measure performance on relevant social (i.e., stakeholder) dimensions.  Ideally, they'd be as straightforward as measuring financial performance.  Of course, they're not.  So, my question is, are there some generally accepted or standardized measures of social performance that I should be covering (like employee turnover, etc), and if so, is there a good guide for teachers on how to do all this measuring?  Or are we still at the stage of ad hoc measures, like listings on best places to work, shop, etc?

Thanks,

Mike

***********************

Michael L. Barnett, PhD

University of South Florida

College of Business Administration

Department of Management & Organization

4202 E. Fowler Avenue, BSN 3213

Tampa, FL 33620-5500

Phone: 813-974-1727

Fax: 813-974-1734

E-mail: mbarnett@coba.usf.edu

Webpage: http://www.coba.usf.edu/barnett

View my research on my SSRN Author page:

<http://ssrn.com/author=414796>

**************************************************

I'd like to thank everyone for the quick and massive outpouring of ideas on this topic.  In responding, some have requested that I let them know what I eventually come up with.  Glad to, if I can put it all together in a way that I won't be embarrassed to make public.  So I'll work on that.  In the meantime, I'd like to clarify that what I seek is ways (for students) to assess social performance as an outsider.  For example, tools would include the KLD database and the Global Reporting Initiative.  It wouldn't include measures that are for internal decision-making only, like customer satisfaction numbers, turnover numbers, employee satisfaction, or anything else that they don't publicize.  Ideally these external measures would also be comparable across firms.  As we know from our own universities' selective use of rankings, firms tend to use whichever measures look favorable, and just don't mention the negative ones.  Thus, a systematic approach is all the more important.  Anyway, that's the gist of it for now.  Hopefully I'll be able to share something later.

Best,

Mike

Fellow SIMians, I'm hoping for some very specific insight.  I'm team teaching a course this semester on assessing organizational performance.  We want our (MS) students to be able to locate relevant information and effectively assess the financial, social, and environmental performance of a public firm.  My duties are to cover the social performance aspect (though next year, I'll be taking over the entire course).  I have two sessions.  In the first session, I'll be addressing conceptual issues to breed understanding of the relevance and importance of social performance, and pushing the "business case" notion that attending to stakeholder issues can contribute to financial performance.  That's not so tough.  In the second session, though, I'm to teach ways to measure performance on relevant social (i.e., stakeholder) dimensions.  Ideally, they'd be as straightforward as measuring financial performance.  Of course, they're not.  So, my question is, are there some generally accepted or standardized measures of social performance that I should be covering (like employee turnover, etc), and if so, is there a good guide for teachers on how to do all this measuring?  Or are we still at the stage of ad hoc measures, like listings on best places to work, shop, etc?

Thanks,

Mike

***********************

Michael L. Barnett, PhD

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">University of South</st1:city> <st1:state w:st="on">Florida</st1:state></st1:place>

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Business Administration</st1:placename></st1:place>

Department of Management & Organization

<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">4202 E. Fowler Avenue</st1:address></st1:street>, BSN 3213

<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Tampa</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">FL</st1:state> <st1:postalcode w:st="on">33620-5500</st1:postalcode></st1:place>

Phone: 813-974-1727

Fax: 813-974-1734

E-mail: mbarnett@coba.usf.edu

Webpage: http://www.coba.usf.edu/barnett

View my research on my SSRN Author page:

<http://ssrn.com/author=414796>

**************************************************