Lessons for creating shared value from ESG and RBC: toward indicators and operationalisation

Radu Mares; Kenneth Paul  Charman

doi:10.18543/bee.2966

Radu Mares Lund University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5141-1035
Kenneth Paul Charman CamEd Business School, Phnom Penh https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3204-3010

Keywords: Creating Shared Value, CSR, Corporate Governance, ESG, Due Diligence

Abstract

Creating Shared Value (CSV), Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment, and Responsible Business Conduct (RBC), are three frameworks used to assess the sustainability impacts of businesses. As a relative newcomer, we assess the role of CSV developed in strategic management studies by Porter and Kramer in the light of the latest advances in ESG and RBC. Each framework provides its own perspective, but they all focus on the challenge of measuring and demonstrating practical impact. Each contributes insight and metrics to assess business activity on wider issues than just shareholder value, narrowly defined and measured. This article points to the remarkable speed and evolution in ESG and RBC. The conclusion reached is that CSV should draw on the materiality and due diligence principles underlying ESG and RBC respectively, while contributing its unique insights in terms of business models, innovation and contribution to societal needs. We see the merits of an integrative approach wherein the three perspectives deliver an updated and nuanced understanding of shareholder, and more broadly stakeholder value. This analysis will be relevant to scholars and practitioners with an interest in corporate sustainability and sustainable finance, from both a managerial practice as well as public policy perspectives.

Author Biographies

Radu Mares, Lund University

Is Associate Professor (doctor docent) and Head of the Business and Human Rights thematic area at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund, Sweden. His main research interest is the protection of human rights through economic relations. Radu has a background in human rights law, specializing in the business and human rights area, with a focus on regulatory and compliance issues raised by multinational enterprises in developing countries. His research and teaching combine transnational law, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility perspectives. Radu contributes to his Institute’s capacity-strengthening programs for academics, businesses and/or governmental actors in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Estonia and Belarus, and Asia region. Since 2007 he has taught and supervised at Lund University’s Faculty of Law and more recently at the Economics Faculty. His current focus is on the EU green transition, and the impacts of EU laws on global value chains. He serves on the board of Swedwatch, a Swedish corporate accountability NGO, since 2023

Kenneth Paul Charman , CamEd Business School, Phnom Penh

Is Professor in Strategy and Competitiveness and holds a PhD in International Business from London Business School (1994-98). As Head of the Centre for Business Research at CamEd Business School, Cambodia, Ken has overseen a significant increase in the quantity and quality of research. He has developed the strategy courses for CamEd, Cambodia, including the course Creating Shared Value, inspired by the platform created by Professor Michael Porter and Mark Kramer of Harvard Business School. Ken co-founded and chairs the Harvard Business School Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) Asian Chapter. During his career, Ken has taught strategy, behavioural economics, research methods and management science to bachelor’s, master’s degree and PhD students. Ken was instrumental in establishing Central Asia’s first international business school, Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research in the mid 1990s. Previous to that was policy advisor and international project manager for the European Commission.

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