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This study investigates barriers to social impact bond (SIB) implementation through a review of academic and gray literature. A SIB is a type of public policy instrument that leverages payment for performance (P4P), contracting together with private investments in the delivery of welfare programs. Outcome-based contracts, such as SIBs, are gaining attraction for public service providers in developed countries, but research regarding their implementation remains underexplored both empirically and theoretically.

A literature review is conducted in which two types of documents are included: (1) empirical research papers and (2) evaluations of completed SIB projects. In total, 43 documents have been investigated. The study engages in a comparative design where insights across sectors (healthcare, social care and employment/education), are leveraged. The insights rest on evidence from the UK and US.

The investigation reveals five types of barriers to SIB implementation related to: (1) the SIB model, (2) organizational competencies, (3) data infrastructure, (4) stakeholder engagement and (5) the institutional context. The study discusses ways of managing these barriers and develops a conceptual framework for empirically investigating SIB implementation.

This study is the first academic paper to systematically assess insights regarding the implementation of SIBs. Also, the article proposes a conceptual framework for investigating SIB implementation.

Although individual and business actors are often mentioned as an important part of clarifying the stages that firms and their networks go through from starting up to becoming established, most studies have emphasised activities and resources rather than actors. Therefore, more needs to be known about how actors shape and are shaped through and within firms’ networks.

To clarify the process of reshaping business in networks, the focus of this study is on the role of actors in firms’ networks during the main stages of development. The major events for each stage are described in terms of how these events affect the interaction, alignment and interfaces between individual actors and business actors with a focus on individual and collective interests.

The individual actor plays a key role in the start-up stage, whereas the business actor has a key role in the final stage when the firm has become an important player in the industry. In later stages, the individual actor plays a gradually decreasing role and the business actor an increasing role. However, it appears that an analysis of the interplay between the two levels of analysis provides deeper insight into the shaping.

This study provides new insights into the role of the actor and how the actor shapes and is shaped by a firm and its network in different stages. Further, the study contributes by clarifying actors’ roles on two levels of analysis and shows the roles of interests, conflicts, interfaces and alignment in shaping firms and their networks.