Exploring Social Value for Sustainability: A Revelatory Case Study

Social value for sustainability has received considerably less attention in academia compared to environmental and economic value. To remedy this, our study explores social value for sustainability, investigating an organization dedicated to social and societal contributions through education and empowerment, studying social value at a youth theatre. Drawing on the resource-based view, we distinguish value input and value output for the diversity of stakeholders. Juxtaposing input, that is, value invested, and output, that is, value created, identifies what stakeholders give to and gain from the organization. Our analysis reveals that, first, deliberate value invested and unintentional value are invested. Second, we find more nuances to social value, in particular, the role of value transformation as value drawn from the conversion of value, rather unique for social sustainability. Third, we move beyond the single organization and its stakeholders to identify value contribution to society. The insights from the single case study contribute to our conceptual framework for social value for sustainability that distinguishes deliberate social value invested, unintentional social value provided, social value transformation, social value created, and value contribution to society.