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Elite Networks and the Rise of Social Impact Reporting in the UK Social Sector

This study analyses the structural factors that led to the emergence of the dominant aspirational norm of ‘social impact reporting’ in the social sector. While the results of this analysis are consistent with the existing literature on professionalisation and governmentality, they offer insights into the specific social structures that have underpinned this shift in norms of best practice. Such social structures have not been addressed in the accounting literature. This paper focuses on explaining how, rather than why, it was possible for this new way of thinking about performance reporting to emerge and be disseminated in the social sector. It finds that the structure of the niche community of social investment professionals and intermediaries was an important driver of this change in perceived best practice (see DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Abbott, 1988; Hwang and Powell, 2009; Suddaby and Viale, 2011) and was at the heart of the emergence of this norm of performance measurement. Furthermore, the diffusion of this norm to the broader community of social enterprises and charities was enabled by investment flows (Granovetter, 1974; Padgett and Ansell, 1993; Watts and Strogatz, 1998, Strang and Soule, 1998; Padgett and Powell,2013).