2016 Volume 17 Issue 1 Pages 33-41
This paper critically reflects upon SROI (social return on investment), one of the evaluation tools for social investment from the viewpoint of EBP, an initiative to produce, communicate, and use evidence. Firstly, I describe the history and spread of SROI worldwide and point out that SROI is indeed a type of CBA (cost-benefit analysis), and then, following Nicholls et al. (2009), review the SROI principles and stages. Next, I introduce Arvidson et al. (2010, 2013)’s vivid eight criticisms against SROI. Further, I examine two cases of SROI to find the arbitrariness in calculating the SROI ratio and the possibility of inflating the ratio. Lastly, based on the research on the role of social investment in welfare states. I contend that SROI should not be used to evaluate a project and/or an organization as a target of investment, but should be used to support the gradual investment in a sector as social common capital as EBP has done for years.
