Social enterprise

The capitalist system is under siege. Recently business has been criticized as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies...

How businesses and governments can work together to build digital foundations that benefit everyone.

Most companies feel compelled to give to charity. Few have figured out how to do it well.

Large-scale planning isn't the answer.

Future Economy The Opportunity of Sustainability Paul Polman is the CEO of Unilever, home to brands including Dove and Lipton. Polman has set a goal of...

If you are the leader of a large organization (or only of yourself) who cares about improving the world, here’s a question you should consider: How will you participate in the global solution networks that are increasingly managing to address the world’s problems? A global solution network is a group of independent parties that have […]

It’s the only challenge that gets harder as they scale.

Editors’ note: A few weeks ago, HBR asked members of the Poptech Social Innovation Fellows to tell us their management challenges in running socially minded businesses. Our goal in doing so was to expose these challenges to you — the HBR.org community — with the hopes that the community could assist these challenges via conversations […]

Before the dotcom boom, one never heard the question “what’s your business model?” Asking it would have marked you as dim. A few standard models had been around for a hundred years or so: extractive businesses and agriculture, manufacturing operations, service businesses, media companies, and financial intermediaries, each accommodating a few variations like franchising, piecework, […]

Social media, social enterprise, social era… Do we even know what we’re saying anymore?

Editor's note: This post is part of a three-week series examining innovation in health care, published in partnership with the Advanced Leadership Initiative...

Most businesspeople will serve on the board of a nonprofit organization at some point. But the governance of nonprofits can differ dramatically from the governance of businesses. Even the best intentions can prove disastrous when new board members fail to understand that their traditional business experience can carry them only so far.

Companies are putting their names and resources to work fighting breast cancer and child hunger. But they need to figure out how to meet their business objectives at the same time. Usually, the answer isn’t obvious.

Successful entrepreneurs prioritize financial goals over social ones.

Editor’s note: This post is one in an occasional series on Vijay Govindarajan’s and Christian Sarkar’s idea to create a scalable housing solution for the world’s poor. Each post will examine the challenge from a different perspective, including design, technology, urban planning and more. Today, Stephanie A. Burns shares insights from her company’s forays into […]

They're a reminder that mastery, membership, and meaning are the best motivators.

Understanding the new organizational form that looks beyond shareholders.

Best practices based on an analysis of more than 40 regional initiatives.

When you’re out to solve a problem rather than standardize a business model, your priorities change.

This post is part of HBR’s special issue on failure. You may all recall the headlines, some years back, about an interesting social enterprise called the “playpump.” The idea was neat — hook a merry-go-round type of device to a water pump, let the kids have at it, and voila, you could pump water which […]