Monica Nandan , Professor, Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA &

1. 29th Annual Conference of the Network for Social Work ManagersHow do social workers create social value through innovation? Monica Nandan, Professor, Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA & Archana Singh, Assistant Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, INDIA

2. Context • Resource scarcity: reality for social work practitioners/managers • Create sustainable impact within communities: expectation for all social work practitioners/mangers • New ideas, interventions, innovations: Importance of experimentation for creating sustainable social value/impact • Present study: understand the nature of social value created by social workers, and also their process of social value creation.

3. Objectives • What is the nature of social value created by social workers? • Why and how do social workers innovate in the process of social value creation/social work service delivery?, and • How do social workers define and practice social entrepreneurships?

4. Social Entrepreneurs, Social Value & Social Innovation • Social Entrepreneurship: • proposes solutions to endemic social problems by combining tenets and energy of commercial entrepreneurship with social work practice (Fernando, 2015); • activates and processes undertaken to discover, define and exploit opportunities to create social value (wealth), by either creating new ventures or managing existing ones more innovatively (Zahra et al., 2009).

5. Social Entrepreneurship is Essentially Contested Concept (ECC) and Cluster Concept (Choi and Majumdar, 2013, Journal of Business Venturing) Social Value Creation Social Innovation SE Organization Social Entrepreneur Market Orientation Social Value Creation

6. Social Value • impact generated for different stakeholders • requires constant adaptation to the environment

7. Social Innovation • improves current products/services; improvers internal performance; • new idea that generates sustainable impact and in more just, efficient and effective that current solution.

8. Research Method • Qualitative Case Study: exploratory and descriptive • Sampling Method: Snow Balling • Sample Size: 10 social workers working in different human service organizations (HSOs)in a Midwestern metropolitan city, USA • Method of Data Collection: In-depth semi-structured interviews with the participants (taped) • Method of Data Analysis: After the transcription, ‘coding’ method was used to analyzed the transcribed qualitative data.

9. Findings: Social Worker… • Created social value by continuously pursing to identify and meet new unmet needs • Innovatively delivered services in the face of resource challenges—financial, human, and built space. • Used partnerships and networks to meet the resource challenges to continue providing services. • Used volunteers—lay and professional—intern students and other experts such as construction, hair dressers etc. is note worthy. • Intuitively used components of the social entrepreneurship process during innovation and social value creation, more by accident than by conscious thought. • Had limited understanding of the process of social entrepreneurship.

10. Mission Focused Value Creation • “Our mission is to promote the mental health of the community, promote the quality of life for persons with mental illness, through advocacy, education and support. So with regard to support, when we first got into housing, it was a little stretch. [During the management of ] two CEOs before me, one of the strategic decisions was made to grow the organization in a way that it would be stable over long term, was to do housing. Safe, decent, affordable housing is the number one unmet need among persons with mental illness. It is mission compatible.” • “…what is unique is probably less than 5 % of the agencies in the county do all this stuff—rape and sexual assault services, child sexual abuse services, prevention and education and 24 hour hot line—and as large as we are [not that many around there]. [Others do bits and pieces of all that we offer, but very few offer the comprehensive programs that we do]”.

11. New Unmet Needs • “We have a children’s program [that] we try to do a prevention through kids….You are starting with young, young kids, we have been looking at that. Our program [currently] has been more with middle school and teenagers. Really looking at those young kids…which is hard to do in schools anymore because schools are so strapped for time and [to come into partnership with us]. And I think… the prevention piece is going out and doing the public education and the public speaking. We will talk to whoever is willing to listen to us so that people will know about our services and women can access them. Educating the public about that so that they can be aware of and [recognize] signs and do something about it.”

12. Role of SW Values in Value Creation • “Coming from the core social work value of identifying where the client is and… helping her with what she has identified as her need. [is our shelter’s greatest strength]. I think that coming back to “we look at the individual as an individual” [and] not “all battered women are the same” because they are not. So, knowing that our services have to be flexible and fluid to meet them where they are. As we have seen in the last 5 years increase in the needs, our services have responded accordingly.”

13. Social Innovation • “We really have to be much more accountable in how we are spending the money [given to us by donors]. They want to know that their investment [not donation] was a worthwhile investment. So you have to have to have outcomes that are tied back to that. You have to show very clearly where your money is going to go…[We] are finding less and less opportunities [where donors are saying] “I want to give you general operating money to pay for the lights but it is really tied to a specific project, a specific program and having a specific outcome in return. … We try very hard to have outcomes that we can use for all of the [grants], and that they are very measurable and objective.” • “We really have to be much more accountable in how we are spending the money [given to us by donors]. They want to know that their investment [not donation] was a worthwhile investment. So you have to have to have outcomes that are tied back to that. You have to show very clearly where your money is going to go…[We] are finding less and less opportunities [where donors are saying] “I want to give you general operating money to pay for the lights but it is really tied to a specific project, a specific program and having a specific outcome in return. …We try very hard to have outcomes that we can use for all of the [grants], and that they are very measurable and objective.”

14. Collaboration for SI and SV • “Wherever we can empower family members of clients who attend, both just at a self-sufficiency level and at a financial level, that’s what we try to do. Collaborations with other organizations I think has been most helpful for us. Knowing Medicare rules and reg, I did, until last May, home health through North KC Hospital for about 6 years, part time. I have known Medicare reg very well for what they will allow for services in the homes and what they will allow for supplies for those services. So trying to incorporate those two, Medicare and Medicaid rules together, so that clients can get the most entitlement to the benefits they have got. So trying to be innovative there so that, if you had Medicare Home Health, some of the supplies would be paid for through Medicare Home Health, let’s go ahead and look at that.” • “…we provide the case management, but as you are referring people to get their needs met, then you need to network with other agencies to come up with things”

15. Define SE • “My definition would be that someone who is able to, based on community and people’s needs, be able to formulate specific policy and organizational efforts to provide services. That means, to provide employment and provide service to client to meet their specific needs. So SE is someone who is able to do that, to creatively, collectively provide service that meets needs at that social level.” • “Social entrepreneurship--I would think what it means is organizations like ours or others that are trying to find, identifying a community need. .... Trying to find a way to address those needs rather it was new and innovative services, something that might be risk taking.”

16. Implications and Recommendations • Context creates opportunities for social workers--as does social work values--to be “resourceful” and “innovative” to continue meeting growing needs of consumers and adding social value. • Community partners and collaborators played an important role in the resourcefulness demonstrated by social workers, for innovation and value creation. • Recommend: • social work curriculum more systematically and formally include concepts, principles, and behaviours related to social innovation, value creation and social entrepreneurship. • CEUs related to cross-sector and cross-disciplinary partnerships, measuring social value, designing sustainable business plans and participating in dialogues around these concepts when these are initiated by business, nonprofit and public sector organizations. • Dual Degree Program (MSW/MBA). • “Though not every social worker is a social entrepreneur, the two are akin to each other.” (Tan, 2012, p. 96)

17. Thank You