Gayle Avery and Narelle Hooper
This interview demonstrates how CEOs can focus on CSR to engage the workforce and change the culture and performance of an organization.
Abstract
Purpose
This interview demonstrates how CEOs can focus on CSR to engage the workforce and change the culture and performance of an organization.
Design/methodology/approach
This article reports on an interview with Dr David Cooke, Managing Director of Konica Minolta Australia.
Findings
By introducing CSR to the firm, and in particular pursuing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #8 against human trafficking, the MD not only changed the management style and culture in the organization, but also enhanced commercial results. Performance improved across many measures: revenue, profit, market share in a declining marketplace, highest number of units placed into the Australian market, increasing prestige associated with the company’s brand, and becoming an employer of choice.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are consistent with the literature on corporate sustainable investment, but further studies are needed to fully understand the processes involved in changing culture and improving performance via CSR.
Practical implications
This interview clearly shows the steps that the new CEO took in radically changing the culture of his organization by adopting CSR extensively.
Social implications
The power of business is vital to pursuing societal goals, and the case of Konica Minolta Australia demonstrates that doing so also benefits the company.
Originality/value
This study clearly explains how a corporate culture was changed and performance enhanced through a strategy based on investment in social issues.
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This interview discusses a “Blue Ocean” strategy initiative: how to introduce effective change in diabetes care into Thailand given a strong reluctance in patients, and in Thai…
Abstract
Purpose
This interview discusses a “Blue Ocean” strategy initiative: how to introduce effective change in diabetes care into Thailand given a strong reluctance in patients, and in Thai society, to see that diabetes is not a condition to be treated by doctors alone.
Design/methodology/approach
An interview with Dr Thep Himathongkam, the pioneer of holistic diabetes care in Thailand.
Findings
One strategic management problem he faced was the lack of suitably trained staff. Thailand had no university courses producing the multidisciplinary personnel needed for diabetes treatment such as diabetes educators, dieticians, or foot care specialists. He address the multidisciplinary personnel shortage by training the missing specialists, getting universities on board and more recently securing funding from the World Diabetes Foundation.
Practical implications
The result of the diabetic foot-care training for more than 2,500 personnel, mostly from community hospitals, has been markedly successful, with a reduction in annual amputations in Thailand of 80 per cent over five years.
Originality/value
This interview offers a look at the multi-track problem solving required to successfully implement a Blue Ocean strategy.
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Gayle C. Avery and Harald Bergsteiner
This BMW case aims to show how many of the company's practices that accord with principles espoused in the authors' sustainable leadership model contributed to its recovery after…
Abstract
Purpose
This BMW case aims to show how many of the company's practices that accord with principles espoused in the authors' sustainable leadership model contributed to its recovery after the global financial crisis (GFC).
Design/methodology/approach
This case illustrates how BMW institutes the 23 honeybee leadership principles and practices described in the authors' 2011 article “Sustainable leadership: practices for enhancing business resilience and performance” in Strategy & Leadership.
Findings
The examples provide a glimpse into the honeybee practices that enabled one firm to emerge successfully from the GFC. Regarding the five performance outcomes on the sustainable leadership pyramid, BMW clearly exceeded expectations in 2010 on financial returns and shareholder value.
Practical implications
Clearly BMW provides long‐term value for all its stakeholders – suppliers, shareholders, employees and customers – as is expected of a sustainable enterprise. BMW's business model, innovative approach to problem‐solving and adherence to sustainable leadership practices underpin a capacity to survive crises such as the GFC.
Originality/value
This is a rare case study of corporate‐wide sustainability practices and principles in operation. Informed by the examples of best practices at BMW, managers at other companies can envision how honeybee management might be implemented at their firm.
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Sooksan Kantabutra and Gayle Avery
Avery and Bergsteiner's updated set of 23 sustainable leadership practices derived from sustainable enterprises and five performance outcomes provides a framework to examine the…
Abstract
Purpose
Avery and Bergsteiner's updated set of 23 sustainable leadership practices derived from sustainable enterprises and five performance outcomes provides a framework to examine the business practices of Thailand's largest conglomerate, Siam Cement Group (SCG). The aim of this paper is to build on and expand Kantabutra and Avery's study based on Avery.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis was conducted by grouping Avery and Bergsteiner's principles into six categories, namely taking a long‐term perspective, investing in people, adapting the organizational culture, being innovative, exhibiting social and environmental responsibility, and behaving ethically. Adopting a multi‐data collection approach, research teams supplemented case study data with non‐participant observations from visits to the conglomerate and its training sessions. Multiple stakeholders were interviewed in semi‐structured interviews. Documentation and information supplied by, or published about, the conglomerate was consulted.
Findings
All six sets of practices, which sharply contrast with the prevailing business model of short‐term maximization of profitability but are consistent with the 23 sustainable leadership practices, were found to apply in varying degrees to SCG. A total of 19 applied strongly, with three others moderately strong.
Practical implications
Given that sustainable leadership principles are associated with enhanced brand and reputation, customer and staff satisfaction, and financial performance, the new Sustainable Leadership Grid provides corporate leaders with a useful checklist for this purpose.
Originality/value
This paper reports on the first examination of Avery and Bergsteiner's 23 sustainable leadership elements in a developing economy. It shows that even a publicly‐listed company can resist pressures to conform to business‐as‐usual practices and adopt the long‐term, socially responsible principles of “honeybee” sustainable leadership.