Exploring the Contingencies of Scaling Social Impact: A Replication and Extension of the SCALERS Model

While the scaling of impact remains to be one of the most important issues in the field of social entrepreneurship, limited empirical research has been focused on the topic. One of the first scholarly attempts to build a research agenda to better understand the scaling of social impact was the SCALERS model. Building on initial theoretical and empirical work, this study is based on a sample of 179 nonprofit organizations in Italy. It also extends prior work by providing theoretical grounding through contingency theory and conducting the first empirical test of the situational contingencies of the SCALERS model. A positive relationship between each of the SCALERS variables and scaling—except replicating—has been found. Initial evidence of five contingencies that moderate the relationship between the SCALERS and scaling of social impact has also been found.