Johanna Mair and Christian Seelos awarded research book prize

Hertie School Professor of Organization, Strategy and Leadership Johanna Mair and Hertie School adjunct Christian Seelos are winners of the 2019 research book prize given by the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).

The Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Book Prize (Awarded jointly by ARNOVA and Independent Sector) will be presented at ARNOVA’s annual conference in 2019 in San Diego in November for the book "Innovation and Scaling for Impact: How Effective Social Enterprises Do it" (Stanford University Press, 2017).

The book, which also won the the Alliance for Nonprofit Management’s Terry McAdam Book Award in 2017, presents deep insights and diagnostics on how organisations create impact. The book draws on a decade of research, in which  Seelos and Mair explored how social sector organisations create value.

There is an overlooked tension, according to the authors, between organisations’ need to innovate – or implement new ideas – and how they build on existing strengths, a process the authors call “scaling”.

The book includes four case studies that detail effective strategies for combining innovation with scaling, aimed at helping readers understand how to drive progress and offering tools to help them become more effective in tackling social problems and societal challenges. 

ARNOVA is a diverse community of scholars, educators, and practice leaders that strengthens the field of nonprofit and philanthropic research in order to improve civil society and human life.

A copy of the book can be ordered here.

Read an excerpt of the book here.