Feasible or Fashionable? Investigating Organizational Adoptions of Social Impact Bonds

This project investigates how organizations adopt and use social impact bonds (SIBs). SIBs are new forms of management instruments (MIs) that combine payment-by-results contracting with social investments to increase the quality and effectiveness of welfare services. The project investigates the role of policy context in SIB adoption (paper 1), the different types of implementation determinants in SIBs (paper 2), and the process of SIB operationalization undertaken by organizations (paper 3 and 4). The project is based on two qualitative case studies, a literature review, and quantitative evaluation. It primarily draws on translation theory and argues that SIB adoption is catalyzed by continuous interactions between organizations, instruments, and institutions often resulting in substantial modifications of the SIB instrument. The project finds SIBs to be ambiguous and complex types of management instruments with some potential to improve welfare provision. Four possible trajectories for future SIB development are discussed. These include utilizing SIBs as 1) temporary projects to increase the evidence-base of welfare services, 2) policy experimentation tools directed as inspiration for new legislation, 3) traditional SIB models but with a larger scale to ensure cost-effectiveness, and 4) investment models to optimize philanthropic capital with a low return-on-investment.