Social Audits

Social auditing refers to the process of identifying, analyzing, measuring, evaluating, and monitoring the impact of an organization's operations on different stakeholder groups. The auditing process is carried out in five steps.

First, an exhaustive enumeration of the organization's social activities is compiled into a social data bank. Since compiling such a data set may prove to be a daunting task, due to the wide range of social [Page 1944]activities that the organization performs, a lengthy and well-planned study may be required.

Second, the compiled data are analyzed such that the meaning and cost-benefit ratios of the social activities may be inferred. Analysis is conducted by using sophisticated statistical analysis tools and expert judgment.

Third, the impacts of the organization's activities on different stakeholder groups are measured. Since ...