IRG and the Future of Marketing Initiative at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School jointly led this study. It is described as the first global study to identify best practices on the pivot from shareholder primacy to value creation for colleagues, customers, the community, and investors.
The study asks what business and leadership practices drive more Humanized Growth, drawing on hundreds of global experts, academics, and cross-functional C-suite practitioners.
Key findings
- The premise is that the idea of growth has changed. Companies are increasingly seen as parts of a larger societal ecosystem, responsible for creating value for all stakeholders.
- The four stakeholder groups are named consistently: colleagues, customers, community, and capital markets.
- The study covers three things: winning stakeholder value creation strategies, how impact is best measured and communicated, and the leadership attitudes and behaviors it takes.
- One reported finding concerns what companies are now worth. Value attributed to intangibles has increased dramatically, including brand value, customer data, employee loyalty, and business reputation.
- The implication drawn is a measurement problem. As businesses move to stakeholder-centric models, leaders have to develop ways to manage and measure those intangibles.
Who took part
The study was conducted in partnership with the National Association of Corporate Directors, the Society for Human Resource Management, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, and other business organizations.
The partner list is deliberately cross-functional, described as representing each function of the C-suite landscape. It adds FGS Global, the Arthur W. Page Society, the Association of National Advertisers, The Marketing Society, The B Team, Spencer Stuart, WARC, KennedyFitch, Mindshare, the Yale Program on Stakeholder Innovation and Management, and CKGSB.
The IRG people attached to the study are listed as founders Frank van den Driest and Marc de Swaan Arons, content directors Mariana Peneva and Eva Linderborg, and community director Aljan de Boer.
How the findings were taken out
The findings were presented at events across sixteen cities, from New York, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo to Cape Town, Istanbul, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Sydney.
Alongside the events, the team offers presentations at industry conferences and in-company events, and facilitates strategy and leadership retreats. A findings handout is available on registration.
What the endorsements emphasize
Klaus Schwab, chairperson of the World Economic Forum, is quoted congratulating IRG on the study and saying it matters to show that corporate multistakeholder responsibility is better understood and more widely promoted as the basic corporate leadership concept of the century.
Other endorsements pick out the finance angle, arguing that the positive role investors and the finance function can play should not be overlooked, and that aligning incentives with strategy shifts the focus to true value creation rather than collecting today’s financials.
A further endorsement points to the balance leaders live with between the right long-term decision and the necessary short-term priority, and says no sustained growth is possible without addressing key stakeholder needs. Another notes that including Asia-based companies makes the frameworks useful to senior leaders globally.
Scope and limitations
This page describes the study rather than reporting its numbers. It states the scope and the partners and points readers to the handout and the press release for the findings themselves.
Source
This page summarises IRG Impact Study, by Institute for Real Growth (IRG), Future of Marketing Initiative (FOMI) at the Oxford University Saïd Business School, 2023-12-28.