GSBGEN 322: Improving and Measuring Social Impact
This course focuses on strategy and actionable measurement in government, non-profit organizations, market-based social enterprises, philanthropy, and impact investing. "Actionable" means that measurement is used by managers, investors, and other stakeholders in improving outcomes. nn nThe course explores the intersection of several ideas that seem to be in some tension with each other. (1) "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." (Dwight D. Eisenhower), (2) You can't manage what you can't measure, (3) Measurement is expensive and its results are often ignored, (4) "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts" (apocryphally attributed to Einstein), (5) "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." (Campbell's Law). nnnSpecifically, the course will include: strategic planning, logic models, theories of change, monitoring, and evaluation; measuring the social impact of governments, non-governmental organizations, and market-based social enterprises, and asking how philanthropists and impact investors can assess their own impact; impact investing, performance contracting, and social impact bonds; and techniques for improving the behavior and accountability of individuals and organizations. These issues will be addressed mainly through business school case studies, which place the students in the position of CEOs, managers, and investors called upon to make major decisions. nnnWARNING: The course has a fair amount of reading - not more than is common in undergraduate and graduate courses, but more than is typical for MBA courses in the GSB.
Units: 3
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Grading: GSB Student Option LTR/PF
Instructors:
Brest, P. (PI)
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