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Abstract
In this article social impact assessment is described and discussed. Social impact assessment is dened as ``the process
of identifying the future consequences of a current or proposed action which are related to individuals, organizations
and social macro-systems''. The main characteristics of this method are summarized. Methodology for this type of
policy oriented social research is presented. Also the main types of social impact assessment projects are dealt with.
Following this the most important problems encountered in this type of research are discussed and experiences are
reported. Finally the perspectives of social impact assessment are explored. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: Analysis of consequences; Ex ante evaluation; Forecasting; Impact assessment; Simulation; Social impact
assessment; Strategic learning; Strategic planning
1. Introduction
In the mid-1960s I got involved in a computer
simulation of the careers of managers in the
Netherlands. I used a national sample of top and
middle managers and I simulated inter alia the
consequences of hiring more young managers with
a high level of education on long-term developments in the managerial population in this country
(Becker, 1969a,b,c). Nowadays I would call this a
simulation with a cohort replacement model. The
research project triggered a number of developments in my work as a sociologist. In the rst place
*
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soc/hb.
E-mail address: h.a.becker@fss.uu.nl (H.A. Becker).
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IAIA. A masterclass providing advanced training, rst held in 1998 and to be repeated annually, uses Internet and video-conferencing in
order to reach participants from all over the
world.
Most people usually imagine large development
projects like dams and reservoirs when they hear
the words social impact assessment. These schemes,
often commissioned by national governments,
mostly have dramatic consequences for villagers,
their homes and their elds. There are indeed
many social impact assessments, which explore the
social consequences of these types of development
projects. Another kind is legal impact assessment.
For example, European integration will have
consequences for social security policies in the
member states. The member states have to prepare
for deregulation and for new legal provisions and
in this connection social impact assessors are actively assessing the consequences of deregulation
and re-regulation (see de Kemp and Sips, 1994).
We also nd social impact assessment in commercial enterprises. Management teams apply
strategic learning to explore shifts in the social
environment of their organizations, to design new
strategies, and to simulate the consequences of
these shifts for the activities of their organization,
their customers and their competitors (see
Schwarz, 1972; Senge, 1990).
What is implied by the term impact assessment
in a general sense? Impact assessment can be dened as the process of identifying the future consequences of a current or proposed action. One of the
major sub-elds of impact assessment is social
impact assessment. I dene social impact assessment as the process of identifying the future consequences of a current or proposed actions, which
are related to individuals, organizations and social
macro-systems.
In this article I want to summarize the methodology available for projects of social impact
assessment (Section 2). Next I want to describe the
main types of social impact assessment projects
(Section 3). Following this the major problems in
this kind of research are discussed (Section 4).
Also some experiences are reported (Section 5).
Finally the perspectives for social impact assessment are explored (Section 6).
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scenarios is both a scientic and an artistic enterprise, and in designing them we require a theoretical model of the processes to be simulated. For
this reason, designing scenarios and in a broader
perspective impact assessment projects, is a kind of
art-science.
The following step is to design strategies that
might mitigate or eliminate the problem. Strategies
are plans for the action the central actor has in
mind. Designing strategies also belongs to the area
of art-science. In most cases, 35 strategies are all
we need to prepare the intervention. In preparing
complex interventions, it is advisable to specify
strategies, tactics, and operational plans.
Assessing impacts involves a number of simulations. Here strategies are tested by confronting
them with the various scenarios and, if necessary,
with each of the critical incidents as well. The
simulations can be based on the data from previous projects and ex post evaluations. The outcomes of these simulations are insights into the
strong and weak aspects of each of the strategies,
specied for each scenario. We have to keep in
mind that impact assessment, including social impact assessment, is a kind of simulation. We pretest actions in an articial setting in order to gather
information about possible consequences.
One of the outcomes of the simulation must be
a ranking of strategies. A strategy that shows
many favorable outcomes under one scenario may
be a disaster in another. Strategies are ranked per
scenario and per critical incident, from a least regret strategy to a most regret strategy, and there
are a number of techniques for ranking scenarios.
If it is possible to quantify costs and benets in
monetary terms, costbenet analysis will be preferred. If, however, negative and positive aspects
cannot be expressed in monetary terms, it is better
to apply multi-criteria analysis.
After the rst round of simulations, we will
probably have found many weaknesses in the
current or proposed action and we will hesitate to
launch the action because we are discontented with
its negative consequences. This hesitation leads to
a redesigning of the action in order to mitigate its
negative impacts. After the strategies have been
redesigned, we again simulate their fate and rank
them once more. Iteration sometimes requires 10
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This kind of social impact assessment frequently takes the form of a micro-simulation. In a
micro-simulation, we focus on micro-units in the
target system. In the example cited here, these are
individual educational careers. The system studied
is simulated by a model, which allows the characteristics of individual educational careers to be
adjusted from time to time. In other words, a micro-simulation acts on micro-data, which represents several thousand individual actors, their
goals and their behavioral choices. The use of data
from the micro-level has given this simulation
model its name.
The essence of micro-simulation lies in a program which focuses on a multi-actor, multi-level
and multi-process analysis. A micro-level presentation of individuals and their social, economic
and demographic characteristics, together with
other relevant spatial and activity attributes, provides the basis for the simulation (Nelissen, 1993,
p. 34). Information about individuals is stored in
the form of personperiod les which are updated
for each period.
Second, the meso-level: here action is directed
at an organization (which is neither too large or
too small) or a social network. How does a social
impact assessor work? Here I take my example
from a gender impact assessment study (Verloo
and Roggeband, 1996). Will a specic retrenchment policy in the university sector result in decreased career opportunities for female academics?
Cuts in a university budget will aect the academics employed in various ways.
Older professors who have reached the upper
levels of the salary scale for this type of employment will not experience any problem nancially.
However, other academics, many of whom are
female, who are ready to move from their position
at the lower end of the salary scale to an intermediate level in the academic hierarchy may be
forced to stay longer in their present position if
those senior positions cease to exist.
Third, the macro-level. Again an example can
best demonstrate this type of social impact assessment. As I have already mentioned, the European Union requires the free circulation of
workers and as a result it will be necessary to
harmonize social security schemes. A macro-sim-
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ulation of a number of social security arrangements could be used to analyze the impacts of innovations and impact assessors, for example. The
focus will then be on the impact each innovation
might be expected to have on wage level, the percentage of unemployed in the labor force and
schemes for nancing social security provisions.
Macro-level social impact assessments often consist of pre-testing a country's legal arrangements.
In most cases, this typology provides an adequate basis for classifying social impact assessment
studies. Now and again, a study will have the
characteristics of more than one type, and in such
cases the study must be classied according to its
dominant characteristics.
4. Major problems in social impact assessment
The discussion of major problems in social
impact assessment starts with the determination of
the size of the study. An instant social impact assessment study requires, roughly speaking, 15
minutes up to 1 month. It demands up to 1 personyear of eort. There is enough experience with
instant social impact assessments to make them an
interesting option. Organizations confronted frequently with situations that require instant social
impact assessment will see to it that they have
experienced sta at their disposal. They will also
see to it that they have a problem analysis, a
baseline analysis and a set of scenarios prepared in
advance. A medium-sized social impact assessment
study will require 13 person-years and it will take
13 person-years to complete the project. In the
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6. Perspectives
I assume that social impact assessment will be
confronted with: (1) an increase in competition
between actor systems, (2) an increase in external
control of actor systems, (3) an increase in the
demand for exibility and innovation in actor
systems, and (4) an increase in the application of
science by actor systems (Becker, 1991).
The acceleration of competition between actor
systems can be interpreted as part of the process of
modernization, in particular of rationalization. In
earlier times, a certain amount of slack was normal
in most organizations, but gradually the drive for
rationalization has lead to an increase of eciency.
We see this happen in business enterprises, because
they introduce internal quality control. We also
observe this in the area of government. In many
countries in the West, government organizations
have adopted internal quality control. Non-prot
organizations follow the same strategy. In many
actor systems, input, throughput and output are
measured and evaluated, followed by eciency
drives. If one organization in a sector of society is
successful in systematically increasing its eciency, other organizations in the sector will have to
try to imitate this success.
The spread of external control of actor systems
is a consequence of changes in the political system
and the mass media. In the political system, opposition parties increasingly use external control of
government organizations as a weapon to attack
the governing parties. The opposition parties try to
establish that the activities of the governing parties
are undemocratic, inecient, or a waste of taxpayers' money. In order to achieve this eect, opposition parties pre-test actions of their opponents
with regard to future consequences, wait for the
actions to be put into practice, evaluate the consequences and round up with the statement I told
you so. The mass media have also adopted this
strategy with regard to acts of government. Unmasking government makes newspaper articles
and television programs successful. The mass media also have discovered the advantages of unmasking business enterprises and non-prot
organizations. They have commercial products
and services tested, followed by publicity about the
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outcomes. Non-prot organizations are also targeted for ex ante and ex post evaluations. Mass
media have health care tested, by open or unobtrusive observation. They have services rendered
by universities tested, followed by publications
showing the ranking of the education provided
and the outcomes of research published by departments in all kinds of disciplines and institutions. External evaluation forces actor systems to
improve their ways and to watch their reputation.
The demand for exibility and innovation in
actor systems is increasing because these systems
have to survive in a quickly changing environment,
confronting them with, inter alia, increasing cultural diversity of the population, and demands for
emancipation of women and minorities. They have
to change to new instruments and procedures, and
they have to cope with more and more complexity.
These developments put pressure on human resources management. Actor systems have to keep
their sta exible, inter alia by running training
programs and ultimately forcing into retirement
employees who are not able to keep up with
change. These developments also require adjustments of equipment and procedures. Frequently
actor systems must renew their technical infrastructure, in particular with regard to information
systems. When new procedures are introduced in
their sector of society, they are forced in most
cases to adopt these procedures. Competition and
external control pressure them to take the demands for exibility and innovation seriously. The
number of niches that permit actor systems to hide
from external pressure is diminishing. Actor systems have to cope with permanent reorganization.
In all scientic disciplines that can oer their
outcomes for practical use, methods for the application of science are improving and applicable
knowledge is generated as much as possible. This
is because social responsibility is taken seriously,
but also because retrenchments in academic and
related research force scientists to enter the market, to make prot and to nance part of their
basic research out of these prots. At the same
time, actor systems are increasing the application
of science in order to improve their production
systems, organizational systems and social systems. They try to produce goods and services more
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