The Social Enterprise Conference

While corporations have been giving back to society through corporate social responsibility initiatives for decades, the approach of aligning social impact activities with their core business strategies has only gained popularity in the past few years. This newer methodology, known as shared value, illustrates the strong interconnection and reinforcing relationship between creating social and financial value.

Across industries, businesses are dedicating resources to adopting shared value strategies. That being said, there are still questions, both from an academic and practical point of view, whether it is feasible for a purely profit generating organization to effectively implement double bottom line strategies.
This debate is going to explore to what extent shared value can and does exist in a for profit institution versus a more traditional social enterprise. It will also consider the business case for why corporations should implement shared value strategies and once they have, how they think through the potential trade-offs between social and financial impact.