Project Background
Organisations, both small and large can play an important role in driving positive social change in today’s society. Examples range from large electric utility companies helping their customers to reduce their energy consumption, to grocery stores encouraging people to buy healthy food, to social enterprises empowering disadvantaged groups. Whilst positive examples are celebrated, we lack a framework to understand how organizations can successfully create social change. The aim of our research is to builds just such a framework based on evidence, i.e. actual research that links organisations and their actions to collective behaviour change. We conducted a systematic review summarizing evidence across 20 years of academic and practitioner research, and synthesized this evidence into a framework outlining how organizations can create positive social change towards more sustainability. Besides an academic paper, we published a report accessibly written for practitioners and distilling the "how to" of creating social change. see below
Findings
The findings are available in the form of a report targeted at practitioners and highlighting the type of actions private and third sector organisations can take to create social change and drive social innovation.
The project is the most comprehensive and credible evidence to date on how organizations can drive driven social change. Resting on a systematic review of 123 applied and academic sources representing 144 individual studies from 1992 to 2012, we outline
the three conditions necessary for changing people's behaviour, and which underlie any social change effort.
the 19 mechanisms organization can use to drive positive behaviour change.
tips for managing successful change projects (summarized in 13 project practices), and
a new understanding of positive social change as a bottom-up process initiated and triggered by organizations.
The findings are summarized in
a practitioner report Business-Driven Social Change: A Systematic Review of the Evidence (109 pages) as well as an Executive Report: Driving Social Change: Best Practices for Business Leaders and Social Entrepreneurs (20 pages)link. Audience: Directors of philanthropy, community relations, corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility (CSR), Business leaders involved in social innovation, and Directors of social enterprises and non-profits will also find inspiration in reviewing the practices of how to create social change. If you are unsure how the practices may relate to your organisation, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the research team.
an academic publication: Stephan, U., Patterson, M., Kelly, C. & Mair, J. (2016). How organizations drive Positive Social Change: A Review and an Integrative Framework. Journal of Management, 42(5), 1250-1281. ABS 4*, FT, download here; download supplemental material, link to journal full-text
Team
Prof Ute Stephan (Principal investigator), Dr Malcolm Patterson, and Ciara Kelly. Academic advisors to the project were Professor Johanna Mair, Stanford University, USA and Hertie School of Governance, Germany; Professor Rob Briner, University of Bath, UK; and Dr Jo Rick, Manchester University, UK. Peter Crellin and Sylvia Acquah provided valuable research assistance.
Practitioner advisors to the project were Network of Business Sustainability (nbs.net), and Debbie Baxter (LoyaltyOne), John Coyne (Unilever Canada), Karen Clarke-Whistler (TD Bank Group), Tim Faveri (Tim Hortons), Brenda Goehring (BC Hydro) and Peter MacConnachie (Suncor Energy)
This research could not have been produced without the financial and intellectual assistance of the Network for Business Sustainability (nbs.net). Academic work on the project was further supported through the European Union through its Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development, and demonstration under the grant agreement 613500 (SEFORÏS project).
Tools, Webinars and Reports
The social change framework explains the levers of behavior change and effective impact strategies. See our free online MOOC outlining how the framework can inform effective social impact strategies for social enterprises (see video below or on the edx platform). See also the video here.
Two webinars summarize the key lessons of how commercial organisations - large and small - can drive social change along with examples from leading companies. or alternatively click here
Related consulting and teaching tools
We have developed tools to support firms and social enterprises in mapping and enhancing their social impact based on our framework and tools drawn from evaluation methodology. These materials are free of charge, please contact Ute at ute.stephan@kcl.ac.uk to receive them.