Stanford Social Innovation Review

Market solutions to poverty, which include services and products targeting consumers at the “bottom of the pyramid,” portray poor people as creative entrepreneurs and discerning consumers. Yet this rosy view of poverty-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful. It allows corporations, governments, and nonprofits to deny this vulnerable population the protections it needs. Romanticizing the poor also hobbles realistic interventions for alleviating poverty.

It’s time to rethink the “C” in CSR.

National Instrument’s partnerships not only energize science education, but also boost the company’s brand and employee morale.

In their efforts to be socially responsible, most companies fail to wield their most powerful tool: lobbying. Yet corporations such as Mary Kay, Royal Dutch Shell, and General Motors are increasingly leveraging their deep pockets, government contacts, and persuasive powers for the cause of good. Not all kinds of socially responsible lobbying are created equal, however. The authors discuss which forms are best for companies and society.

Why the Soccer Ball Project—one of the world’s first multistakeholder efforts to stop abuses of labor rights—is failing to protect workers in Pakistan.

Consumers say they want to buy ecologically friendly products and reduce their impact on the environment. But when they get to the cash register, their Earth-minded sentiments die on the vine. Although individual quirks underlie some of this hypocrisy, businesses can do a lot more to help would-be green consumers turn their talk into walk.

CSR as competitive advantage

Rewarding the socially responsible with customers.

Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise have become popular rallying points for those trying to improve the world. These two notions are positive ones, but neither is adequate when it comes to understanding and creating social change in all of its manifestations. The authors make the case that social innovation is a better vehicle for doing this. They also explain why most of today’s innovative social solutions cut across the traditional boundaries separating nonprofits, government, and for-profit businesses.

British American Tobacco Malaysia has won the favor of the Malaysian government and people by making donations to cultural institutions, funding scholarships, and developing youth smoking prevention programs. But can a tobacco company ever be socially responsible? 

Commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs) must calculate two bottom lines: alleviating poverty for clients and also generating profits for investors. To achieve the latter goal, some MFIs charge their impoverished clients exorbitant interest rates. The recent Banco Compartamos IPO in Mexico raises a red flag, demonstrating how easily well-intentioned MFIs and their investors can shift from microlending to microloan-sharking.

How to get more racial minorities into corner offices.

Dancing Deer Bakery helps most when it keeps its eye on the bottom line.

(left): CEO Patricia Karter (right) and employees ice cookies. The company hires heavily from its surrounding low-income neighborhood of Roxbury.

For much of its history, Wal-Mart’s corporate management team toiled inside its “Bentonville Bubble,” narrowly focused on operational efficiency, growth, and profits. But now the world’s largest retailer has widened its sights, building networks of employees, nonprofits, government agencies, and suppliers to “green” its supply chains. Here’s how and why the world’s largest retailer is using a network approach to decrease its environmental footprint – and to increase its profitability.