Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a respected business scholar, Ernest Arbuckle Professor of Business at Harvard Business School, one of the Times of London's 50 most powerful women in the world, and author of 18 books, has written SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good. In it, P&G is one of several companies recognized for prosperous track records and unrelenting dedication to core values that guide them as they grow.
For years, lip service has been paid by many corporate leaders to achieving high performance and being a good corporate citizen. What I have discovered in my research, however, is that the two issues, business performance and societal contributions, are, in fact, intimately connected. Service to society, guided by well-articulated values, is not just "nice to do" but an integral part of the business models for companies that I call the vanguard. They use their
unique strengths to provide innovative new solutions to societal challenges such as early childhood education,
water safety and sanitation, employment for people with disabilities, small business development, energy
conservation, and disaster relief. Societal initiatives undertaken largely without direct profit motives
are part of the culture that builds high performance and thus results, ironically, in profits.
* Excerpted with permission: SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth,
and Social Good, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, published by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing
Group. Copyright©2009 by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. All rights reserved.
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