Please join a panel of experts including Witold Henisz (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania), Sarah Kaplan (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto), Andrew King (Questrom School of Business, Boston University), Tom Lyon (Ross School of Business, University of Michigan), Anita McGahan (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto), and Ioannis Ioannou (London Business School) at 16:00 - 18:00 CEST on Sunday, August 1st 2021 in this timely and engaging live session.
In recent years, the literature and public discourse surrounding corporate sustainability and responsibility has emphasized the power of ‘win-win’ business strategies to motivate businesses to tackle societal challenges and thereby increase their financial profit. Recent discussions in online forums, triggered by an insightful article by King and Pucker (2020) as well as Sarah Kaplan’s book “The 360 Corporation”, have centered on the dark side of the widespread focus on win-win strategy. Specifically, because research has not established that win-win strategies are sufficient to actually solve enormous social challenges such as climate change or inequality, our collective attention to these strategies dilutes and discourages research, teaching, regulation, and corporate action focused on more effective (though less superficially attractive) approaches.
The purpose of this PDW is to engage the scholarly community in a critical analysis of the boundaries of the ‘win-win strategy’ as a tool to solve global challenges. In this session, we extend the ongoing conversation into a live forum. The PDW will begin with a debate between expert panelists as they react to a set of provocative statements drawn from the literature and from past online discussions. Following the debate, participants will split into themed “round table” style breakout rooms, where they will engage with one another to find ways to address the issues raised in the debates as they relate to specific topics of interest. Panelists will serve as moderators to guide the conversation towards specific actionable results. Each group will then present their findings to the group at large.
We look forward to “seeing” you there!