The study frames its subject as a how problem rather than a why problem. As the era of shareholder primacy comes to an end, business leaders recognize they must adapt to succeed in a complex stakeholder economy, but they need a roadmap to make the shift in what the handout calls unchartered territories.
The central question is what over-performing companies do differently from under-performers. The study set out to identify insights, best practices, success frameworks, and practical tales from the trenches for making the shift to value creation for all stakeholders.
Key findings
- Ninety percent of business leaders consider stakeholder value creation an opportunity.
- On grounding, engaging stakeholders shows 64 percent against 9 percent, and representing stakeholders in decision making shows 61 percent against 3 percent.
- On reimagining, a more long-term focus shows 70 percent against 23 percent, and purpose guiding all strategic decision-making shows 71 percent against 7 percent.
- On focus and organizing, a value creation strategy across all stakeholders shows 69 percent against 3 percent, systemic change to drive stakeholder value shows 69 percent against 9 percent, and working interdependently shows 67 percent against 7 percent.
- The five drivers are human first stakeholder understanding, a future backwards utopian vision and aspiring role, holistic strategy focused on adaptive change areas, fostering interdependence, and role modeling Da Vinci Humanized Growth leadership.
What was studied, and across whom
The approach combines more than 475 vision interviews, an AI Hypertrend study of more than 120 thousand social media posts by business leaders, and more than 750 quantitative survey respondents, across 52 markets with seven country deep dives, five C-suite functional deep dives, and both business to business and business to consumer.
The functional deep dives cover the board, CEO, CFO, CMO, CHRO and CCO. The advisory board includes Halla Tomasdottir of the B Team, Angela Ahrendts, Colin Mayer of Oxford, Conny Braams of Unilever, Lorraine Twohill of Google, Sylvia Mulinge of MTN Uganda, Javier Meza of Coca-Cola, Jennifer Remling of WPP, Sue Allchurch of the UN Global Compact, Hans Ploos van Amstel of Partners Group, and Sanjiv Puri of the G20 Action Council.
Klaus Schwab, chairperson of the World Economic Forum, is quoted on the opening page saying it is important to show that corporate multistakeholder responsibility is better understood and more widely promoted as the basic corporate leadership concept in the 21st century.
What each driver means
Grounding means understanding the organization’s impact on all stakeholders, aligning with the reality of the world, and recognizing the importance of stakeholders in shaping a company’s success. Reimagining means overperformers who reimagine the emerging world and define their role within it, prioritizing long-term thinking, a compelling future vision, and a clear corporate purpose.
Focus means a holistic strategy that supports short-term decisions in a long-term context, and managing adaptive change, meaning transformative initiatives, differently from performative change, meaning day-to-day operations. Organizing means driving systemic change and fostering interdependencies and collaboration across the business and beyond, including partnerships across industry, NGOs and governments.
Unleashing means Da Vinci leadership qualities that combine right-brain and left-brain thinking with empathy. Those leaders create an environment where employees feel safe to share ideas, and they prioritize active listening, vulnerability, servant leadership, and open communication.
What is offered alongside the study
The benchmark lets a company identify its own humanized growth opportunities by assessing and comparing itself to the overperformers in the IRG benchmark database, and the study was presented at events across sixteen cities from New York and London to Mumbai, Tokyo and Shanghai.
The handout notes the lineage of the work. The IRG curriculum builds on the 2018 Growth Study, and two earlier studies, Marketing2020 in 2014 and Insights2020 in 2017, became Harvard Business Review cover stories, with one leading to a book published in 2010.
Scope and limitations
This version is a working draft rather than the finished handout. Several sections are marked as work in progress and the document carries production notes for the designer alongside the content.
Source
This page summarises The IRG Impact Study: Driving More Humanized Growth, by Institute for Real Growth, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, 2019.