Curated Booklists - Business & Economics

This book examines the changing reciprocal relationships between corporations and their various social obligations over the very long term - from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Chapters from emerging and established business historians assess the full range of social obligations that corporations held historically. By adopting an innovative methodological approach that is long-term and comparative, this book offers a challenge to the literature on corporate history and will be of interest to researchers and academics in the field of finance and business history.

Business on a Mission is based on more than a decade working with some of the first businesses to develop social missions and shows the foundations behind their success. It looks at how businesses can profit from working hand in hand with society and identifies a model for success. The book demonstrates how businesses can go from hiding behind "social shields" to picking up "social swords" and presents the six criteria to look for in assessing a social mission. It also focuses on how good communications can build trust and bring about positive change; and it provides clear ways to engage employees and improve productivity as well as "rules" for communicating social missions externally.

Business and the Natural Environment: A Research Overview is a summary of the research thus far on this topic, offering a structure for understanding its emergence and growth, the multiple facets that make up its present state and a glimpse into the future of where it may be going. Along the way, the authors provide a compendium of its important works to help situate the interested reader in the landscape of the field.

The book explores the specific contribution of the concept of responsible innovation to coping with the technological, social and political breakthroughs generated by innovation, and is based on philosophical resources such as the ethics of virtue and the ethics of "care".

Capital and the Common Good shows how market failure in one context can be solved with market solutions from another: an expert in securitization bundles future development aid into bonds to pay for vaccines today; an entrepreneur turns a mobile phone into an array of financial services for the unbanked; and policymakers adapt pay-for-success models from the world of infrastructure to human services like early childhood education, maternal health, and job training. Revisiting the successes and missteps of these efforts, Georgia Levenson Keohane argues that innovative finance is as much about incentives and sound decision-making as it is about money. When it works, innovative finance gives us the tools, motivation, and security to invest in our shared future.

Facing especially wicked problems, social sector organizations are searching for powerful new methods to understand and address them. Design Thinking for the Greater Good goes in depth on both the how of using new tools and the why. As a way to reframe problems, ideate solutions, and iterate toward better answers, design thinking is already well established in the commercial world.

Frugal Value contests the notion that companies can rise to the great challenges of our time by adopting so-called 'sustainable business' practices. This book explores what business responsibility looks like today, and how it could be put into practice through far-reaching changes to companies, ranging from new approaches to product design and business models to reconfiguration of operations and innovative ownership structures. Frugal Value provides practitioners and scholars with the perspective and tools they need to design companies that help drive the socio-economic changes so urgently required for a sustainable and just world.

Gender Equality and Responsible Business places gender equality at the heart of the responsible business agenda with the aim of contributing to CSR practice as well as research. Discussion about gender issues in the field of corporate responsibility has focused on workplace issues and corporate boards, which are important areas of work. Contributions within the edited collection elucidate current practice, bring new perspectives, and help us to expand the field of responsible business with regard to gender equality, and beyond.

This book is a comprehensive, road-tested framework for managing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) based on years of award winning performance in senior management roles in a multinational business. The author shows why non-financial performance indicators are just as important as financial ones when it comes to delivering performance and securing long term shareholder value.

The concept of Socially Responsible Capitalism (SRC) is based on the entrepreneurial spirit. It encourages exemplary behaviors, such as effective, efficient and ethical behaviors, by stimulating social responsibility of companies and organizations. This is combined with the development of economic empowerment and legitimate efforts of each citizen-actor. Socially Responsible Capitalism and Management is dedicated to present the different aspects of SRC for the Society, companies and organizations and also individual actors, as citizens, producers and consumers.