Conscientious Organisations

Businesses face many challenges in delivering on the requirements – and opportunities – connected to sustainability. Consumers, employees, partners, investors and citizens are demanding organisations both design and implement the necessary strategies to meet the environmental and social issues confronting the world. And to do that while delivering profits. Quite simply, many of the existing approaches are not up to this task. For example, CSR is largely tangential and does not deliver real change in business practices. However, there are organizations that really embrace a balanced stakeholder perspective and generate positive transformative change. These are conscientious organisations.

We, and others, have become critical of CSR. First, because it is a compensation mechanism. CSR aims at compensating the negative externalities generated by companies. We argue that companies should build responsible and sustainable business models capable of spurring positive transformations rather than putting a sticking plaster on existing practices. Second, because CSR tends to be confined to an organisational department, while an organizational conscience is embedded across the organisation. Third, because CSR and sustainability strategies are too often disconnected from the core of the business strategy. 

Many organisations think about and develop strategies to address sustainability, social justice and the challenges outlined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, research shows that too often they fail to really embed work in these areas into the core of what they do and therefore the impact is muted. What is distinctive about conscientious organisations is that they are truly committed to social and environmental issues and integrate them into their decision-making as the way to deliver short and long-term benefits.

Participants will learn how to build an internal conscience grounded in a transformative purpose and a set of guiding principles that can be embedded across the organisation. Additionally, they will understand how conscientious organisations invest not only in marketing and corporate communications, but also in transformative communications. Participants will learn the different innovation typologies that can transform an organisation, spur systemic change and deliver profitability. Finally, they will learn about the key characteristics and practices they will need to adopt to become more conscientious leaders. 

After the course participants should be ready to help their organisations go beyond CSR and help build an organisational conscience that drives the business and sustainability and responsibility strategies. Additionally, the participants will be able to navigate the complex ethical dilemmas that managers face when they aim to create shared value for all their stakeholders – who often have conflicting interests. Finally, the participants will be able to spur internal transformative change in their organisations by understanding how to embed the organisational conscience into value creation processes, culture and incentives.