Research Summary
Research Summary
Description
Professor Wei-Skillern's research is focused in the field of Social Enterprise. Her research examines the creation of social value in both commercial and nonprofit organizations. In the former stream of research on corporate social responsibility, she has studied the complex management challenge of how corporations develop and integrate a stakeholder approach into their overall business strategy. In the latter research stream on the management of social enterprises, her research has examined the topics of nonprofit growth and management of multisite nonprofits, and most recently has been focused on nonprofit networks. She is currently studying how building a range of strategic networks can be a powerful lever for nonprofits to achieve greater social impact. A network approach requires that organizational leaders focus not only on management challenges and opportunities at an organizational level, but also more broadly on how to mobilize resources both within and outside organizational boundaries to create social value. This research explores specifically how trust based networks that leverage local resources in innovative ways can be created and managed. Through an examination of a range of network strategies, from sector level umbrella organizations, to intraorganizational networks, to grassroots networks, this study is aimed at identifying best practices for increasing organizational impact through network building and to examine the circumstances under which such strategies are most effective.