Enhancing social impact of business research through engaged scholarship: the BReSSI framework

Social impact of research is defined as tangible improvements in society achieved through the application of research findings that contribute to collectively valued societal goals (Aiello et al., 2021). This definition shifts attention from intermediate steps, such as disseminating or knowledge exchange, towards societal goals, such as employment enhancement, climate change mitigation, poverty reduction and education improvement, as outlined in EU strategies or UN Sustainable Development Goals (Aiello et al., 2021). Increasingly, business schools emphasise the importance of achieving social impact through research (de Ruyter et al., 2022; Russell-Bennett et al., 2019). Nevertheless, business research still lacks robust frameworks for understanding and facilitating how such impact is created (Moorman, 2024; Ozanne et al., 2024).

It is recognised that much work has focused on techniques for evaluating social impact, yet far less attention has been given to research approaches that actively enhance its creation (Reale et al., 2018). This includes the often-overlooked potential for social impact embedded within the research process itself. Existing approaches typically examine how research findings generate impact, rather than how the research process can function as a source of impact during implementation (Weaver et al., 2023). This omission is critical, as business researchers face distinctive challenges in bridging theory and practice while responding to multiple stakeholders, including academic institutions, funders, policymakers and practitioners, whose priorities and value systems often diverge (Parkinson and Naidu, 2024; Zolkiewski, 2018). Our paper addresses this gap by positioning the research process as a service to society and by offering specific guidance to help business researchers facilitate social impact while maintaining scholarly rigour.

We draw upon three theoretical perspectives to explore the challenges of facilitating social impact through business research:

1. Knowledge-to-Action framework (Graham et al., 2006).

2. Academic-Practitioner Divide theory (Bartunek and Rynes, 2014).

3. Engaged Scholarship (Van de Ven, 2007).

This integrated theoretical approach offers complementary insights: while the Knowledge-to-Action framework and Academic-Practitioner Divide theory help diagnose the problem, Engaged Scholarship offers a methodological solution through stakeholder collaboration, iterative problem-solving and mutual benefit creation that bridges academic rigour with practical relevance (Van de Ven, 2018).

Our research question is: How can business research facilitate social impact? Drawing on these integrated theoretical perspectives and a revelatory case study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we position the research process as a direct service to society, shifting from passive knowledge generation to active social impact creation. The primary contribution of our paper is the development of the Business Research as Service for Social Impact (BReSSI) framework. BReSSI integrates four interconnected principles and provides business researchers with practical guidance to facilitate social impact. While our empirical context involves a non-profit organisation, the BReSSI principles have broader applicability and can be adapted to various business research contexts.

In the following sections, we present our research design, report our findings on how business research can facilitate social impact and introduce the BReSSI framework. We then discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our study and conclude with its limitations and directions for future research.

Our theoretical framework integrates three complementary perspectives to address the challenges of facilitating the social impact of business research:

1. The Knowledge-to-Action framework identifies barriers in translating research into practice through its cyclical knowledge creation and implementation process, revealing critical junctures where research knowledge often fails to translate into improvements in societal goals (Graham et al., 2006).

2. Academic-Practitioner Divide theory explains the underlying causes of these translation failures by highlighting systematic tensions between academic and practitioner domains through divergent timeframes, competing priorities and communication differences (Bartunek and Rynes, 2014).

3. Engaged Scholarship offers a methodological pathway for overcoming these challenges through collaborative knowledge co-creation that involves stakeholders throughout the research process (Van de Ven, 2007).

Table 1 summarises how these theoretical perspectives address complementary aspects of the research-to-impact challenge, showing their contributions to our framework development. Detailed descriptions of each theoretical framework are provided in Appendix A in the supplementary material.

Service researchers are increasingly employing single-case approaches to develop new frameworks (e.g. Baron et al., 2018; Parkinson et al., 2021). Similarly, we use a single-case study design to explore how the research process itself, not only its outputs, can facilitate social impact. The case study integrates two methodological components (phases): (1) research process implementation, involving interviews, focus groups and observations guided by Engaged Scholarship principles, and (2) reflexive analysis, which investigates how the research process contributed to social impact. Our case represents a revelatory case study (Yin, 2018), as the pandemic created unprecedented conditions that illuminated the mechanisms through which research processes enable societal outcomes. Single-case studies are especially valuable for framework development because they preserve rich contextual insights that multiple-case designs often sacrifice for generalisability (Piekkari and Welch, 2018).

Our case study involved a faith-based non-profit organisation providing refugee integration services in the UK that faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic forced a rapid transition from face-to-face to online service provision, creating a complex challenge at the intersection of consumer vulnerability, technology adoption and service design. This context provided an ideal setting for exploring how business research can facilitate social impact because it involved multiple stakeholders with competing needs, resource constraints requiring innovative solutions and urgent societal challenges requiring immediate research relevance. Our partnership-based approach embodied SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals) by creating multi-stakeholder collaboration to address social challenges. Our study received full ethical approval from our academic institution’s ethics review board. Detailed organisational background and service specifications are provided in Appendix B in the supplementary material.

We are studying our own research process in action within the non-profit organisation context, rather than studying the organisation or its digital transition per se. Therefore, our unit of analysis (Grünbaum, 2007) is the research process, specifically, how a business research process functions to facilitate social impact. This unit of analysis necessitates a detailed examination of both case study phases, as they constitute the actual phenomenon under investigation.

Phase one employed Engaged Scholarship principles (Van de Ven, 2018) through four interconnected stages that demonstrate how collaborative research methodology can embed social impact creation within the research process itself:

Problem Formulation began with collaborative engagement with stakeholders. The non-profit organisation first conducted a survey to evaluate user experiences, identify challenges in accessing online services and gather suggestions for improvement. We then deepened insights through informal discussions with staff and service users and by observing online sessions. This collaborative approach grounded the inquiry in lived experience, ensuring relevance to stakeholder-identified problems.

Theory-building entailed a deliberate shift in theoretical orientation. Rather than adopting deficit-focused perspectives (e.g. digital divide, technology adoption) that emphasise what stakeholders lack, we selected strength-based theories that recognise and leverage existing capacities. Such theorising is vital for research aimed at social impact (Hollebeek et al., 2025), as strength-based theorising provides conceptual tools to identify and mobilise stakeholders’ existing resources rather than focusing on limitations (Denzin and Giardina, 2014). We therefore employed transformative learning (Taylor, 2007) and adaptive capacity (Aggarwal et al., 2016), which highlight stakeholders’ knowledge, creativity and problem-solving abilities, enabling us to surface and build on innovations already emerging within the organisation.

Research Design involved semi-structured interviews with staff (n = 11) and service users (n = 23), focus groups with staff (1 group, 5 participants) and service users (2 groups, 6–8 participants each) and participant observation of 18 online sessions (1 to 2 h each). Appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 2013) guided data collection, encouraging participants to articulate positive experiences and successful adaptations. This approach positioned the research process as capacity building by uncovering instances of positive deviance (Bradley et al., 2009), where participants had already developed innovative solutions.

Problem-solving culminated in co-design workshops where staff and service users translated findings into actionable solutions. Using bricolage (Witell et al., 2017), the creative recombination of available resources, participants developed practical, low-cost interventions in real time. This process demonstrated how research can both generate academic insights and equip organisations with context-specific tools. The project ultimately produced a collaboratively developed toolkit of user-friendly guidelines to support ongoing service improvements.

Reflexive analysis is a well-established analysis approach in areas such as psychology (Braun and Clarke, 2021a), education (Brookfield, 2017) and healthcare (Johns, 2025), where it serves both as a mode of professional learning and a source of empirical data. In business research, however, reflexive approaches remain underutilised despite their potential to enhance social impact (Hibbert et al., 2014). Systematic reflexivity enables researchers to document not only challenges, ethical dilemmas and unintended consequences, but also successes, enablers and effective practices (Braun and Clarke, 2021a).

In our study, we conducted a reflexive analysis of phase one data to examine how the research process facilitated social impact. Three data sources were analysed, capturing the research process as our unit of analysis: (1) field notes documenting research activities, stakeholder interactions and emerging impacts; (2) reflection notes capturing detailed researcher accounts of how activities contributed to impact beyond knowledge generation; and (3) follow-up interactions with stakeholders exploring the influence of research on their practices. Guided by Braun and Clarke’s (2021b) reflexive thematic analysis, we familiarised ourselves with the data, generated initial codes around instances of impact, grouped them into themes, refined and defined their characteristics and selected illustrative examples. Member checking with key stakeholders confirmed that the identified themes represented their experiences and validated how the research process created value beyond academic outputs.

Our analysis identified four mechanisms through which business research can facilitate social impact, as detailed below (subsequent synthesis of these mechanisms helped develop the BReSSI framework).

Our research process, guided by Engaged Scholarship (Van de Ven, 2018), identified four mechanisms through which business research can facilitate social impact: bridging knowledge gaps, enhancing practical application, fostering collaborative learning and creating sustained value. Table 2 presents the progression from specific codes to these higher-order mechanisms alongside exemplary research practices that enacted them.

Bridging Knowledge Gaps: The participatory approach in our problem formulation phase enabled genuine knowledge co-creation between researchers and stakeholders, rather than one-way transfer. Two mechanisms stood out. Firstly, drawing on appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 2013), we reframed organisational discussions to highlight not only problems but also successes in digital transition. This shift revealed that user dissatisfaction stemmed less from technical hurdles than from unmet emotional, social and mental support needs. The problem thus emerged as a complex challenge of sustaining holistic support in online environments rather than a purely technological issue.

Secondly, our strength-based theorising (Denzin and Giardina, 2014) uncovered hidden capacities among both refugees and staff, fostering cross-stakeholder learning. For example, the code “hidden strength recognition” captured how young refugees had independently created a WhatsApp support network to share job opportunities, language resources and emotional support – an innovation invisible until surfaced by the research process. Recognising such initiatives prompted a theoretical shift from digital divide frameworks to transformative learning (Taylor, 2007) and adaptive capacity (Aggarwal et al., 2016), which better explained how staff and refugees were not only coping but also innovating within online service provision.

Enhancing Practical Application: Our Engaged Scholarship approach enabled the immediate translation of academic insights into practical solutions, overcoming the barriers typically described in the academic–practitioner divide. Co-design workshops applied bricolage techniques (Witell et al., 2017), where participants improvised with available resources rather than relying on new investments. This process, captured in our code “resource bricolage”, allowed solutions to be developed, tested and refined within the research timeline, ensuring immediate organisational benefit.

One such instance occurred during a workshop on homework submission challenges. Refugees described difficulties uploading assignments to Google Docs due to limited internet access and unfamiliarity with the platform. Through in-session prototyping, participants themselves proposed photographing completed work and sharing it via WhatsApp, a tool already embedded in daily routines. This simple adaptation was implemented immediately, increasing homework submission rates. The example illustrates how the research process became a site of innovation, with solutions emerging in real time rather than being delayed until after project completion.

Fostering Collaborative Learning: Our research process also functioned as a platform for mutual capability-building, where learning occurred during, not after, research. Reciprocal exchanges emerged as researchers shared methodological techniques while stakeholders contributed contextual expertise. This dynamic, coded as “stakeholder empowerment”, strengthened participants’ ability to advocate for themselves and shape their learning environments, reducing dependency on external expertise.

A notable example arose when language tutors expressed frustration at their inability to read non-verbal cues in online sessions. In facilitated discussions, digitally confident colleagues shared how they had developed an emoji-based feedback system to gauge comprehension in real time. This peer-to-peer exchange evolved into a collaborative toolkit session, where tutors and students co-created a simple guide standardising emoji use across classes. The guide continued to develop beyond the project, evidencing how the research process embedded lasting skills and collective problem-solving practices.

Creating Sustained Value: The Engaged Scholarship enabled value creation throughout the research process rather than solely after completion, manifested at multiple levels, from immediate service improvements to broader systemic influence. Follow-up discussions documented increased organisational capacity for ongoing innovation. Rather than creating temporary fixes, the research process embedded capabilities within the organisation and its users. This occurred by deliberately building self-evaluation skills and creating adaptable resources that could evolve with changing needs. Knowledge transfer extended beyond the immediate research context through various dissemination activities. Cross-organisational sharing further extended the value created as solutions developed within our specific context were adapted by other organisations facing similar challenges.

For example, the collaboratively developed online service delivery toolkit attracted attention from the EPSRC-funded Digitally Enhanced Advanced Services (DEAS) NetworkPlus (Wood et al., 2021). Its demonstration of low-cost, context-sensitive innovations influenced their research agenda, extending the project’s reach to sector-wide practice standards. At the organisational level, follow-up discussions documented continued improvements and the expansion of hybrid services to underserved groups such as older refugees and those with limited digital literacy. These ripple effects illustrate how research designed as a collaborative, capacity-building process can deliver both immediate solutions and lasting systemic change.

The aforementioned four mechanisms formed the foundation for our proposed framework, leading to four BResSSI principles that mutually reinforce each other: collaborative problem formulation (from bridging knowledge gaps), strength-based theorising (from enhancing practical application), inclusive research design (from fostering collaborative learning) and iterative real-time problem-solving (from creating sustained value). BReSSI extends beyond the Engaged Scholarship’s methodological foundation to provide specific principles focused on achieving social impact (Figure 1). The cyclical nature of our framework reflects how the four principles mutually reinforce each other: collaborative problem formulation provides the foundation for strength-based theorising, which informs inclusive research design, enabling iterative real-time problem-solving that, in turn, refines the problem understanding.

Collaborative Problem Formulation emerged from our findings on bridging knowledge gaps. This principle emphasises diverse stakeholder engagement, participatory problem definition, local knowledge integration and evolving problem scope. While Engaged Scholarship emphasises collaboration, BReSSI specifies how to structure this collaboration through iterative problem formulation with stakeholders. When we uncovered the shift from educational to emotional and social needs and revealed hidden capabilities within the refugee community, this highlighted the importance of engaging diverse stakeholders from research inception.

By actively involving diverse stakeholders (e.g. service managers, practitioners, service users and policymakers), researchers can uncover nuanced challenges and opportunities that may be overlooked in traditional research approaches. This collaborative approach ensures that business research addresses real-world issues and responds to the evolving needs of businesses and communities, thereby increasing the potential for social impact (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2011; Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006). This principle corresponds to Moorman’s (2024) assertion that researchers should nest and immerse themselves in marketplace exchanges and use a two-way lens to uncover opportunities for better world research.

Strength-based Theorising was derived from our findings on enhancing practical application. Strength-based theorising prioritises problem-driven approaches, recognises existing strengths, embraces theoretical adaptability and aligns with broader societal goals (Denzin and Giardina, 2014). Engaged Scholarship advocates for bridging the theory-practice gap; however, BReSSI introduces strength-based theorising to leverage stakeholder strengths specifically. Developing solutions like WhatsApp-based homework submission and Facebook-based vocabulary games demonstrated the value of building on stakeholders’ existing strengths.

Our findings suggest shifting from a deficit-based to a strength-based approach in theory-building and developing propositions that acknowledge various stakeholders’ strengths, knowledge and experiences. Our study demonstrates how strength-based theories such as transformative learning (Taylor, 2007) and adaptive capacity (Aggarwal et al., 2016) can be employed to encourage and support innovation and resilience in resource-constrained environments. This principle resonates with Moorman’s (2024) call to design research focused on actionable levers, increasing the chances that market actors will implement research findings, providing immediate and long-term benefits.

Inclusive Research Design emerged from our findings on fostering collaborative learning. This principle emphasises stakeholder role clarity, knowledge accessibility, embedded capacity building and service-compatible methods. The co-development of solutions like online teatime and digital skills-sharing sessions demonstrated how involving stakeholders in research design leads to more effective outcomes. This principle aligns with Keller’s (2024) call for researchers to tap into multidisciplinary networks and adapt to the complexities of real-world research contexts.

The successful implementation of a bricolage technique (Witell et al., 2017) illustrates how an inclusive and context-sensitive research design can effectively respond to evolving needs and opportunities. BReSSI is oriented towards capacity building of stakeholders, as demonstrated by co-developing digital skills among staff and refugees and participatory workshops with practitioners from the non-profit sector. Our framework also ensures mutual benefits by providing immediate improvements for stakeholders in addition to the usual academic outputs, addressing the different time horizons between academics and practitioners.

Iterative Real-time Problem-Solving was derived from our findings on creating sustained value. This principle incorporates feedback-driven iteration, immediate value delivery, continuous refinement, solution sustainability and resource transferability. Our findings showed how continuous solution refinement led to immediate improvements (e.g. increased user engagement and improved satisfaction) and broader outcomes (e.g. contributing to policy discussions and informing sector-wide digital transitioning).

This principle resonates with Lynch’s (2024) emphasis on aggregating work from individuals to give a bigger spotlight to a body of work, thereby increasing collective influence and impact. It also supports Moorman’s (2024) suggestion to disseminate academic work and leverage alternative metrics to track and enhance the social impact of research over time. BReSSI adopts a problem-focused, iterative research approach and real-time adaptation, diverging from the linear path of traditional research. This enables continuous refinement of both the research process and outcomes, ultimately leading to more sustainable solutions.

Following Aiello et al.’s (2021) definition of social impact, we examined how business research can facilitate such impact. Our findings identified four mechanisms that enable business research processes to advance societal goals. Synthesising these mechanisms, we developed the BReSSI framework, which translates them into four actionable principles for designing business research that fosters immediate and sustained societal goals. Together, they demonstrate how business research can operate not only as a generator of knowledge but also as a service to society by embedding impact throughout the research process rather than limiting it to research outputs.

This study advances understanding of social impact in business research in three ways. Firstly, our study makes a unique contribution to advancing the social impact of business research by positioning the research process itself as a direct service to society. While much of the literature focuses on how research findings might create impact after completion, BReSSI demonstrates how social impact can be embedded throughout the research process. By integrating Engaged Scholarship (Van de Ven, 2018) with a service-oriented perspective, our framework provides business researchers with guidance for enhancing social impact while maintaining academic rigour, addressing the persistent challenge regarding how business research can more effectively contribute to improvements in societal goals (de Ruyter et al., 2022).

Secondly, our BReSSI framework extends beyond Engaged Scholarship’s methodological foundation (problem formulation, theory-building, research design and problem-solving) to provide specific principles focused on enhancing social impact (collaborative problem formulation, strength-based theorising, inclusive research design and iterative real-time problem-solving). BReSSI elaborates how to enact these principles to create immediate and sustained social impact. In this sense, our framework bridges the theory-practice gap by demonstrating how business research can deliver impact during, rather than only after, the research process.

Third, our study contributes to emerging debates on collaborative approaches in business research (e.g. Alkire et al., 2025; Hollebeek et al., 2025; Moorman, 2024) that emphasise co-creative processes between academics and practitioners to enhance social impact. By documenting mechanisms such as bricolage-based solution development, stakeholder empowerment and strength-based theorising, we provide empirical evidence that supports these co-creative and asset-oriented approaches. In doing so, we position business research as a platform for capacity building, resilience and innovation in resource-constrained contexts.

BReSSI equips business researchers with a structured approach to integrate social impact into their research activities, closing the longstanding relevance gap in management studies by fostering systematic stakeholder collaboration and co-creation of value (Kieser and Leiner, 2009). Our framework enables researchers to position their research as a direct service to society rather than treating social impact as a post-research outcome.

For business researchers, BReSSI transforms traditional research approaches through four interconnected practices. Collaborative problem formulation requires establishing multi-stakeholder engagement from project inception, ensuring research questions address real-world challenges identified by practitioners, service users and policymakers. Strength-based theorising shifts researchers from deficit-focused frameworks towards theories that identify and build upon existing organisational and community capabilities. Inclusive research design embeds capacity-building opportunities within data collection processes, creating mutual benefits for researchers and participants while maintaining methodological rigour. Iterative real-time problem-solving enables researchers to deliver immediate value during the research process through co-design activities and solution development.

To support the implementation of BReSSI, we have developed a comprehensive checklist that operationalises each BReSSI principle (Appendix C in the supplementary material). The checklist provides researchers with structured planning questions for stakeholder engagement, theory selection criteria focused on strengths-based approaches, design considerations for inclusive methodologies and evaluation frameworks for iterative problem-solving. Each principle includes specific action steps, potential challenges and success indicators to guide researchers throughout the research process.

Our experience revealed several challenges in implementing BReSSI. Initially, organisations may express scepticism about research relevance and concerns about time commitments, particularly during crisis periods. We found success by demonstrating flexibility in research timelines and emphasising solution-focused outcomes. During implementation, tensions emerged around competing priorities and participant reluctance to share unsuccessful experiences. We navigated these challenges using strength-based theorising, showing how examining difficulties could generate constructive solutions rather than unfavourable evaluations.

BReSSI emerged from research within a non-profit context, which naturally shaped its development. The framework’s emphasis on collaborative approaches and strength-based theorising is particularly well-suited to contexts where social value creation is a primary organisational objective. However, the core principles are transferable to research involving profit-oriented organisations. In such settings, researchers may need to address additional considerations around competing priorities and stakeholder expectations (different metrics, profit-oriented goals and business priorities) while maintaining the fundamental approach of positioning research as a service that creates value for all participants.

BReSSI offers potential value across diverse business research domains beyond non-profit services. For example, in sustainable supply chain management research, collaborative problem formulation could involve engaging suppliers, manufacturers, retailers and end consumers to identify sustainability challenges from multiple perspectives. Strength-based theorising might focus on identifying existing sustainable practices within supply chains rather than only highlighting deficiencies. In consumer well-being research, an inclusive research design could involve co-creating research protocols with consumer advocacy groups, while iterative real-time problem-solving might generate immediate improvements to product safety or information transparency during the research process itself.

We argue that the core principles of the BReSSI framework have broader applicability. However, the explicit social mission of the non-profit organisation may have created more favourable conditions for collaborative approaches than might exist in profit-driven organisations with competing priorities. The pandemic also may have increased stakeholder receptivity to participatory research, as traditional approaches were disrupted and organisations sought innovative solutions. Despite these limitations, the framework can be used in other settings with refinements.

Our development of the BReSSI framework offers promising avenues for future research. Table 3 outlines key framework elements and corresponding research questions that address current limitations while extending BReSSI’s theoretical and practical contributions.

The authors would like to thank the partner non-profit organisation and its staff and service users for their collaboration and contributions to this research.

This research was partly funded by the EPSRC-funded Digitally Enabled Advanced Services (DEAS) NetworkPlus and the University of Manchester Impact Accelerator Fund.

Generative AI tools have been used to improve the article’s language and readability. The authors remain responsible for the original work.

This research has received clearance from the University of Manchester Ethics Review Board.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.