More and more companies are making the connection between commercial success and attaining sustainable growth through ‘creating shared value’. This Idea outlines three steps organizations can take to advance their efforts in ‘creating shared value’, highlighting the role of inter-organizational networks as a key driver.
Creating positive societal and environmental impact whilst retaining competitiveness has become an increasingly popular concept for companies in recent years—also known as ‘creating shared value.’ A term first coined by Harvard Business School’s Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer in 2011, creating shared value refers to policies and practices that enhance the competiveness of a company whilst improving the economic and social conditions in the communities where it operates.
A number of large organizations have already integrated the concept of creating shared value into their business strategies, including Novo Nordisk, Unilever, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Coca-Cola. Nestlé, for example, have focused on three areas in which they work towards creating shared value: nutrition, water and rural development. In their 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, the company reported that they had reduced direct water withdrawals in every product category, reducing overall water withdrawals per tonne of product by 33% since 2005, in line with their commitment to work to achieve water efficiency across all operations (Nestle Corporate Social Responsibility Report).
In a recent white paper published by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), the idea of creating shared value is revisited by Vered Asif and Charles J. Palus who point to three steps that organizations can take to advance their efforts to do so:
After working through the steps above, organizations can start having candid conversations and dialogue about creating shared value and the leadership strategy required to make it happen.
Asif and Palus highlight different leadership practices developed by CCL that can be implemented, including ‘Boundary Spanning Leadership’; this involves seeing, bridging and leveraging different types of group boundaries, such as demographic, geographic, etc. Similarly, the practice of ‘Dialogue’ involves inquiry and creative conversation through which team members are able to build trust, reflect on assumptions and difficult topics, find common ground and come up with multiple solutions that allow the best ideas to win.
Using these and other practices can help push the idea of making a positive impact on society become reality.
Creating Shared Value. Michael E. Porter & Mark R. Kramer. Harvard Business Review (January 2011).
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