Uncovering the social processes of impact measurement: Insights from the evaluation of United Kingdom's Coventry City of Culture 2021

“对于公共资助的艺术、文化和遗产部门来说，一个特别的挑战是如何……[衡量]其艺术、文化和社会价值创造的影响”——人权委员会华威委员会，2015年，第24页。英国及其他地区的文化机构越来越依赖于艺术和文化项目的社会影响衡量（SIM），以确定如何最好地解决参与和参与方面的不平等问题；使项目与不同的个人更相关；增加对该行业的投资；根据特定的区域和人口情况改进和调整方案；并确保积极的遗产效应，如社会凝聚力和公民自豪感。SIM是定义和表达由组织运作和干预导致的人类状况（身体、心理、情感、艺术、文化和精神）变化的过程。随着政策制定者、投资者和行业领导者呼吁提供信息，帮助他们理解、规划、监控和证明对社会进步的积极贡献，对SIM的需求从未如此之大。获得可靠和及时的社会影响评估在很大程度上取决于负责实际实施影响工作的一线利益相关者，如社会企业、员工和代表政府、投资者和企业设计、实施和接受社会影响项目的社区成员。然而，这些一线利益相关者正在努力采用、应用和学习市场上出现的一系列SIM方法。虽然政策制定者、投资者和学者已经产生了大量复杂的SIM方法，但考虑到SIM方法的社会过程的工作却少得多，尤其是在一线。社会过程是个人和群体联系、反应、调整和重新调整现象的方式。解开SIM的社会过程对于帮助该领域的发展至关重要，因为它是理解哪些行为驱动和阻碍采用、实施和学习的关键。通过现象学分析、利益相关者访谈、日记以及观察，本研究将揭示2021年英国考文垂文化之城的利益相关者（一线受益者、员工、经理、评估人员和影响分析师）如何对一系列已建立的和更新的、定性的和定量的SIM方法做出反应、解释和调整。本研究的结果有助于SIM理论的发展，通过解释这些未被研究的社会过程。该项目还将为如何最好地设计和实施一线演员参与和利益的SIM提供关键的实践见解。反过来，它将使社会影响利益相关者能够更好地接触和学习SIM流程，从而使影响工作蓬勃发展，从而使更广泛的社会受益。

"A particular challenge for the publicly funded arts, culture and heritage sector is how to ... [measure] the impact of their artistic, cultural and social value creation" - AHRC Warwick Commission, 2015, p.24.Cultural institutions in the UK and beyond increasingly depend on social impact measurement (SIM) of arts and cultural programs in order to determine how best to tackle inequalities in participation and engagement; to render programs more relevant to diverse individuals; to enhance investment in the industry; to improve and tailor programs for given regional and demographic circumstances; and to ensure positive legacy effects such as social cohesion and civic pride. SIM is the process of defining and expressing changes-in human condition (physical, mental, emotional, artistic, cultural, and spiritual) that result from organizational operations and interventions. The demand for SIM has never been greater, as policymakers, investors, and industry leaders are calling out for information that helps them understand, plan for, monitor, and evidence positive contributions to societal progress. Access to reliable and timely SIM depends extensively on frontline stakeholders responsible for the actual delivery of impact work, such as social enterprises, employees, and community members who design, deliver, and receive social impact programs on behalf of governments, investors, and businesses. Yet, these frontline stakeholders are struggling to adopt, apply, and learn from the range of SIM approaches emerging on the market. While there has been a proliferation of sophisticated SIM methods generated from policymakers, investors, and academics, significantly less work has considered the social processes of SIM methods, especially at the frontline.Social processes are the ways in which individuals and groups relate, react, adjust, and readjust to phenomenon. Unpacking the social processes of SIM are essential to helping the domain advance, as it is key to understanding which behaviors drive and hinder adoption, implementation, and learning. Using phenomenological analysis, stakeholder interviews and diaries, as well as observations, this study will unpack how stakeholders of the United Kingdom's Coventry City of Culture 2021 - frontline beneficiaries, employees, managers, evaluators, and impact analysts - react, interpret and adjust to a range of established and newer, qualitative and quantitative, SIM approaches. The results of this study stand to contribute to the development of SIM theory, by explicating the hereto understudied social processes. This project will also provide critical practical insight on how to best design and enact SIM for frontline actor engagement and benefit. In turn, it will benefit wider society by enabling social impact stakeholders to gain better access to and learning from SIM processes so that impact efforts can flourish and thrive.