Harvard To Explore CSR Strategies

Harvard Business School’s new executive education center, Tata Hall

Harvard Business School (HBS) will host its Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategies to Create Business and Social Value executive education program from September 24-27, 2014 at the HBS campus in Boston.

Over three intensive days on campus, executives will work alongside faculty to explore how fully-realized CSR strategies impact their communities, as well as improve business performance, and will learn from innovative best-practices used by successful leading companies around the world.

“Due to a number of factors including the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the increased influence of technologies allowing consumers, activists and business leaders to engage in real time, it’s clear that global businesses are operating in an environment of heightened social awareness and must reconsider their approaches to CSR,” said Das Narayandas, senior associate dean and chair of Executive Education and Publishing. “While most all business leaders strive to be conscious of social, environmental and economic forces affecting their markets and communities, these issues are taking increasing priority alongside traditional business objectives as consumers and stakeholders expect social responsibility to be intrinsically woven into the fabric of business models.”

Through case studies, faculty lectures and discussions with fellow participants, the course will examine the relationship between societal welfare and organizational success. Faculty will also work with executives to identify appropriate CSR strategies based on their companies’ needs and will explore how to best express these needs to various shareholder groups to drive meaningful change.

“This program coaches executives on how to meaningfully craft a structure for their CSR campaigns,” said V. Kasturi Rangan, Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, cochair of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative and faculty chair of Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategies to Create Business and Social Value. “By attempting to lift CSR to a strategic level the same way a company would with respect to other functional and fiscal goals, managers are better able to express the value of this work to both their shareholders and key stakeholders.”

Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategies to Create Business and Social Value is designed for senior executives who direct CSR programs at large companies or who oversee departments related to CSR. Individuals or teams from companies representing a variety of industries are also encouraged.

“CSR can no longer be a peripheral goal for business leaders,” said Rangan. “This program gives participants the tools to identify where their CSR efforts can best be structured across their business models, driving optimal community impact while complimenting and addressing their traditional business objectives.”

Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategies to Create Business and Social Value is presented as part of Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative (SEI), which generates and shares knowledge that helps individuals and organizations create social value in the nonprofit, public, and private sector. Designed for every member of the HBS community as well as the community beyond the school, practitioners take part in Social Enterprise Executive Education programs to improve the effectiveness of their organizations, access Social Enterprise publications, and interact with MBAs through field-based projects and the hiring of summer associates as well as graduates.

Program Details:

Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategies to Create Business and Social Value will run from September 24 through September 27, 2014 at the Harvard Business School campus in Boston.

Faculty:

Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard , Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration.

Jane Nelson , Senior Fellow and Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.

V. Kasturi Rangan , Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing; cochair of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative and faculty chair of Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategies to Create Business and Social Value.

Michael W. Toffel , Assistant Professor of Business Administration.