Multi-stakeholder social impact assessment in consumer food cooperatives

Purpose: This paper investigates a multi-stakeholder approach to social impact assessment in non-profit organisations, with a focus on consumer food cooperatives (co-ops). It investigates different elements of social impact of co-ops by engaging both internal and external stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach: Four case studies were investigated with nine focus group sessions and a total of 99 participants; each focus group contained four to fifteen participants. All focus groups included the homogeneous participants of co-op stakeholders. Focus group questions were inductive and centred on the elements of social impact measurement in co-ops and its challenges. Sessions averaged 2 hours and 30 minutes and were moderated by an expert researcher.

Findings: The paper identified six multi-stakeholder dimensions of social impact measurements in food co-ops: the role of future generations, the co-op model, the value of proximity, trust-based relationships, territoriality, and the role of financial constraints.

Research implications: Managerial implications suggest that co-ops urgently rethink the potential uniqueness of their territories and explore the potential of being more accountable in their community businesses practices, whose task it is to remain in the territory and interact with the different stakeholders to build trust-based relationships.

Originality/value: This paper has two major novelties: i) it developed an idiosyncratic and multi-stakeholder view of social impact measurement by identifying multiple elements to assess the added value of food co-ops; and ii) it adopted focus groups as a methodological choice to engage the stakeholder viewpoint in the definition of impact.

Keywords: Social impact assessment, Consumer food cooperatives, Multi-stakeholder, Focus groups.