The Impact Study set out to identify insights, best practices, success frameworks and practical accounts from people who have made the shift to value creation for all stakeholders. Its central question is put in one word: how.
The problem it addresses is described as an overstretched chief executive. Leaders are pulled in every direction by seemingly conflicting stakeholder interests, and many keep a low profile out of fear of being accused of greenwashing or of being woke.
Key findings
- Ninety percent of leaders at overperforming businesses approach stakeholder value creation as a growth opportunity, against only 50 percent at underperformers.
- On grounding, 64 percent engage stakeholders against 9 percent, and 61 percent represent stakeholders in decision making against 3 percent.
- On long-term thinking, 70 percent hold a more long-term focus against 23 percent, and 71 percent say purpose guides all strategic decision making against 7 percent.
- On organizing, 69 percent drive systemic change to create stakeholder value and 67 percent work interdependently.
- The evidence base is 475 or more C-suite vision interviews, five functional deep-dives, an AI analysis of 120,000 social posts, and more than 750 online survey respondents across 61 markets with five country deep-dives.
The challenge
The framing is that the concept of business growth has itself changed. Companies are increasingly seen as integral parts of a larger societal ecosystem, responsible for creating value for colleagues, customers, communities and investors, and leaders are pulled in every direction to satisfy interests that appear to conflict.
The study’s argument is that despite those fears, leaders recognize they have to adapt to succeed in the stakeholder economy and be future-fit, and that what they lack is a practical roadmap for the shift from shareholder primacy to value creation for all stakeholders.
The methodology is presented as proven rather than new: five global studies, in 2010, 2014, 2017, 2019 and 2023, each contrasting business growth overperformers with underperformers.
The five drivers
Ground means human first. Humanized growth begins with understanding the organization’s impact on all stakeholders, aligning with the reality of the world, and recognizing how far stakeholders shape a company’s success. The measures are engagement, at 64 percent against 9, and representation in decision making, at 61 percent against 3.
Reimagine means working from the future backward. Overperformers reimagine the emerging world and define their role within it, prioritizing long-term thinking, developing a compelling future vision and articulating a clear corporate purpose. Seventy percent hold a longer-term focus against 23 percent, and 71 percent let purpose guide strategic decisions against 7 percent.
Focus means a holistic strategy that supports short-term decisions in a long-term context, and that manages adaptive change, the transformative initiatives, differently from performative change, the day-to-day operations. Sixty-nine percent run a value creation strategy across all stakeholders.
Organize means fostering interdependence. Humanized growth is described as driving systemic change, which requires collaboration across the business and beyond it, through partnerships with industry, NGOs and governments.
Unleash means role modeling da Vinci leadership, combining right-brain and left-brain thinking with empathy. Those leaders create an environment where employees feel safe to share ideas and collaborate, and they prioritize active listening, vulnerability, servant leadership and open communication, which fosters an inclusive culture aligned to the purpose.
What comes with it
The study is accompanied by an events program running from New York and Mexico City through Cape Town, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Penang, Mumbai, Cannes, Sydney, Prague, Stockholm, Tokyo and Shanghai.
It also comes with a benchmarking service, which lets a company identify its own humanized growth opportunities by comparing itself against the overperformers in the IRG benchmark database.
IRG describes itself as not-for-profit and independent, conducting research, delivering executive leadership programs and offering advisory services, supported by WPP, Meta, Google and TCS. The Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative brings academics together with senior executives on the stated belief that no academic or practitioner should go it alone.
Scope and limitations
This is a handout summarizing the study rather than the full report. The percentages compare overperforming organizations with underperformers as the study defines them, across 61 markets and more than 750 survey respondents.
Source
This page summarises The IRG Impact Study: Driving More Humanized Growth, by Institute for Real Growth, Saïd Business School, Oxford University, 2023.