Mapping the Active Economy to Community Value

Defining Community Wellbeing

The impact of an active economy can only be measured by the context in which it positively and negatively contributes to community wellbeing. However, the impact of an active economy is far more complicated than mapping the impact of it on traditional economic indicators. This is because in adopting a traditional valuation model, linked exclusively to economic output indicators such as employment or gross domestic product (GDP), the indirect impacts are excluded. Assessing both the tangible and intangible impact of the active economy is therefore challenging and perhaps impossible to do in isolation. Rather, the impact of an active economy is related to the contribution it makes towards the measurable priorities of a community (Kaplan & Norton, 2005). In other words, the active economy is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Thus, the first step in deconstructing the impact of the active economy is to understand the measurable goals of the community in which it is embedded.

Herein, we adopt individual and community level “wellbeing” as the ultimate goal of a community (King, Huseynli, & MacGibbon, 2018; OECD, 2021). For decades, governments, academics and social enterprises have developed models to measure “wellbeing” and “quality of life”. Wellbeing is recognized as a multi-dimensional construct, framed by value judgements (OECD, 2021) with Table 1 providing a variety of models used to measure individual and/or collective wellbeing.