Going the Extra Mile: Agentic Impact Measuring in Sustainable Ventures

Impact measurement (IM) is crucial for sustainable ventures and their stakeholders to assess if they fulfill their mission statements and, thus, to foster sustainable development. Given its practical relevance and theoretical potential, academic interest in IM is recently increasing. Acknowledging the progress made in the literature relating to IM, this article takes a dynamic perspective and explores how impact measuring develops over time. Drawing on a longitudinal multiple case study design, we shed light on how impact measuring, and IM formality specifically, unfolds over time, why, and with what consequences.. From our inductive analysis, three distinctive pathways emerge, i.e., passive, active, and agentic IM formalizing, in which sustainable ventures engage by displaying varying levels of agency and IM formality. These pathways originate in distinct positions of impact in the business model. Overall, we find that the more a sustainable venture has impact as part of its value proposition, the more agentic it acts in impact measuring and the more formal and institutionalized its IM activities are as a result. Our study makes three theoretical contributions to the literature: First, we develop a novel dynamic perspective of impact measuring with three distinct IM formalizing pathways. Second, we explain the role of agency in impact measuring and how it influences the adoption of formality in IM activities. Third, we shed light on how the position of impact in the business model matters greatly for impact measuring.     «

Impact measurement (IM) is crucial for sustainable ventures and their stakeholders to assess if they fulfill their mission statements and, thus, to foster sustainable development. Given its practical relevance and theoretical potential, academic interest in IM is recently increasing. Acknowledging the progress made in the literature relating to IM, this article takes a dynamic perspective and explores how impact measuring develops over time. Drawing on a longitudinal multiple case study design,...     »