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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the multidimensional nature of social and nonprofit organisations' accountability and performance measurement systems (PMSs). It further considers how these systems help in defining outcome performance indicators downward to beneficiaries

The paper discusses participatory action research (PAR) within an Italian social enterprise. In order to increase dialogue, participation and engagement, the researchers adopted focus groups as a preferred method of investigation and conducted a broad documental analysis from July 2016 to March 2018. The paper discusses the gathered data in light of the social impact value chain as well as the multiple-constituency approach.

The findings support the idea that social and nonprofit organisations lack the expertise and resources to evaluate outcomes and impact; however, through PAR, the organisation defined their desired outcomes and ascertained which internal output measures were most likely to be correlated with these outcomes. Moreover, the findings highlight that nonprofits develop outcome measurements less frequently because they have more control over their immediate activities and outputs.

This research suggests the need to reinforce lateral and downward accountability based on mission and mission-based activities in order to make the performance management system of social and nonprofit organisation linked to the organisational strategies.

This paper innovates methodologically in two directions: 1) it adopts action research as a qualitative method, allowing the researcher to generate solutions to collectively-identified problems and 2) the paper's arguments are strongly supported by rich empirical exploration that occurred over a period of 20 months in an Italian social enterprise.

The objective of this chapter is to present the creation of the scientific research project management office at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo (FMRP-USP), Brazil. The case is about the adoption of Research Management and Administration (RMA) practices in the largest university in Brazil and presents data for the period of 10 years and relevant increase in the number of projects and budget volume managed (USD 2–21 mi) even with a small team (2–5 people). This is a successful case of a participant of The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) program and a relevant reference to encourage other Brazilian universities to implement the RMA structure. The implementation of RMA practices is not only possible but can be a game changer in a context with scarce resources and the proper policies can make a difference to the RMA professionalisation in the country.

Research into entrepreneurial networking activities has ignored an aspect that is important to the entrepreneurs‐does it make sense to pay dues to an organization that promises networking opportunities to help build their business? This study looked at that aspect of networking by comparing revenue growth rates and average number of employees between those businesses whose owners belong to paid membership organizations and those who do not. No differences were found between the two groups of entrepreneurial firms. While there are still benefits to joining these organizations, entrepreneurs should not expect to grow their business because of membership.