Exploring impact, responsibility and context without predetermined assumptions.
Status: Preparatory Phase
Preparatory Phase: September–December 2026
Research Implementation: January–August 2027
Final Report: September 2027
RESC Protocol 01 initiates an empirical investigation into the impact of women-led enterprises.
Its primary purpose is to explore how the impact generated by women-led enterprises can be identified, understood and qualified across different business and national contexts, moving beyond an exclusively economic understanding of entrepreneurial performance.
Responsibility represents one of the dimensions to be investigated, not an assumed characteristic of women-led enterprises.
The protocol therefore does not begin from the proposition that women-led enterprises are inherently more responsible, nor that responsibility necessarily produces different or better outcomes.
It begins from an open empirical question.
How can the impact of women-led enterprises be qualified across different national and sectoral contexts, and what role, if any, do meanings and practices of responsibility play in shaping that impact?
This question establishes two distinct levels of inquiry.
RESC assumes that responsibility cannot be investigated independently of the contexts in which it acquires meaning. The same principle applies to enterprise impact.
National environments, sectors, organisational structures, ownership, business maturity and other contextual conditions may influence practices, decisions and outcomes.
For this reason, Protocol 01 will not select countries, sectors or enterprises on the basis of convenience.
The preparatory phase will begin with an evidence-based mapping drawing on:
The evidence collected during this phase will inform and justify the subsequent selection of countries, sectors and cases.
Protocol 01 will adopt a comparative research design.
The definition of women-led enterprise, the dimensions through which impact will be investigated, the countries and sectors included in the study, and the appropriate number of cases will be established during the preparatory phase.
Sample size will therefore not be determined through an arbitrary numerical threshold. Its adequacy will be justified in relation to the research questions, the characteristics and diversity of the population, the comparative structure of the study and established qualitative research principles.
Selection criteria and their rationale will be documented before the main empirical investigation begins.
A central methodological principle of Protocol 01 is that responsibility must be investigated rather than presumed.
The empirical inquiry will therefore not begin by asking whether participating enterprises conform to a predetermined model of responsible behaviour. Instead, it will investigate decisions, practices, relationships, priorities, outcomes and perceptions of impact, creating space for different meanings and practices of responsibility to emerge from the evidence.
Only subsequently will the RESC framework be introduced as an interpretative lens. Its dimensions —
Meaning → Recognition → Education → Transformation
— will support interpretation without functioning as predetermined conclusions.
Protocol 01 is not designed to validate RESC by finding evidence that confirms it. It is designed to test its analytical usefulness against empirical evidence.
The relationship between framework and evidence is therefore reciprocal:
RESC interrogates the empirical evidence, but the empirical evidence must also be able to interrogate RESC.
Findings may support elements of the framework, challenge them, reveal limitations, identify contextual differences or suggest further development.
Contradictory and unexpected findings will therefore be treated as evidence rather than exceptions to be removed.
Protocol 01 will be progressively documented during its development and implementation.
The purpose of this investigation is not to demonstrate that women-led enterprises are more responsible. It is to understand and qualify their impact and to investigate whether responsibility emerges as a relevant dimension in explaining that impact.
If it does, Protocol 01 will examine how, under what conditions and with what consequences. If it does not, that finding will be equally relevant.
The evidence will determine the answer.