From Me to We: How Shared Value Can Turn Companies Into Engines of Change

Shared value is a management strategy in which companies find business opportunities in social problems. While philanthropy and CSR focus efforts focus on ＂giving back＂ or minimizing the harm business has on society, shared value focuses company leaders on maximizing the competitive value of solving social problems in new customers and markets, cost savings, talent retention, and more.
This book takes the concept of shared value to the next level, with the concept of ＂Me to We＂ (also abbreviated as ＂M2W＂) and discusses the current state of the business-environment-government relationship and shows how the shared value model can contribute to each entity. Citing real cases and examples from multiple industries, the authors show that shared value promotes shareholder interests while serving as a successful business strategy. Chapters explore the emerging phenomenon of shared value, the shareholder-stakeholder comparisons, the role of government in the stakeholder environment, shared value as it related to competitiveness, and operational issues such as implementation, communication, and leadership in their relationship to shared value.
Readers will find useful strategies of Me to We and its implementation by firms that have become leaders in their market. They will receive ideas and insights into business strategies that will overshadow CSR activities as a differentiation or brand development strategy of the past.
Featuring interviews with corporate executives offering their perspectives on shared value, this book will discuss shared value within the context of business and society, competitiveness, and globalization.

Ricardo Ernst is the Baratta Chair in Global Business and Professor of Operations and Global Supply Chain, Managing Director of the Global Business Initiative, Managing Director of the Latin American Board and former Deputy Dean, all at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, USA. He is the author of over 35 papers in academic journals and author/editor of Global Operations and Logistics (also translated to Chinese and Portuguese), Innovation in Emerging Markets and Globalization, Competitiveness and Governability.

Jerry Haar is Professor of international business and Executive Director for the Americas in the College of Business at Florida International University, USA. He is also a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a senior research fellow at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. He is the author/editor of 17 books, including Innovation in Emerging Markets, and Globalization, Competitiveness and Governability.