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[WT News] 1.Open Forum on SROI for the Evaluation of Social Enterprises(11.07.05)

WT News


1. Open Forum on SROI for the Evaluation of Social Enterprises






On April 13, “An Open Forum on SROI to Evaluate Social Values of Social Enterprises” was held at the meeting room on the 9th floor of the Seoul Labor Office, hosted by Korea Institute for Social Enterprises. The forum formed to collect opinions from academia and the field, on the utilization and application of “Social Return on Investment (SROI)”, a model to measure social outcomes of (pre-) social enterprises. The SROI has been developed as the necessity arose for a tool to evaluate social values.





The first presentation was on “The Application of SROI to Measure Socio-economic Outcomes of Social Enterprises in Korea”, given by a professor from the Department of Business Administration of KAIST, who co-developed the SROI model with aid from the Ministry of Employment & Labor.

Subsequently, a senior researcher of the Institute for Policy Research of the Work Together Foundation suggested directions in evaluating social values of Korean social enterprises, explaining various evaluation models.

After the two presentations, discussions proceeded among the representatives of social enterprises and specialists.





Wonju Health Cooperative and the Beautiful Store explained that the recognition of values and significance of SROI had not yet been settled in the field of social entrepreneurship and the business world that represents potential investors. The institutions added that various models to measure business outcomes could provide tools to understand the nature of social enterprises more systemically. They also expressed the desire for developing models adequate for application in the field.

In response to this, Korea Institute for Social Enterprises expressed their plan to open up data and information on social enterprises in Korea, in order to objectify data, suggest and implement reasonable policies.



Korea Capital Market Institute and an accountant from Deloitte Anjin LLC emphasized the necessity for an indicator to reveal values of social enterprises so as to guarantee their growth through capital investment and survival in the market. They also suggested specific plans such as visualization of transparency through releasing basic information to the public.

Last, Hankyoreh Economic Research Institute (HERI) expressed concern about the possibility that the SROI model would remain only a tool to evaluate policy implementation results rather than practically support social enterprises. They emphasized the necessity to develop a macroscopic model to evaluate sustainability of every enterprise, including the “soundness” of social enterprises.





The Open Forum showed the high interest of the coordinators of social enterprises, students and specialists from relevant organizations; and also their expectations for support for and research on social entrepreneurship.




Translated: by KIM Gyeol, CHOI Eun-Young, Skye KANG, HONG Yea-Bin

Edited: by Tamara de Mel, HA So-Hee, Marie LEE,