Reference no: EM132261988

Michael Porter, a business professor of Harvard Business School, expresses an idea of letting business solve social problems. To make business solve social problems, business have to change the thinking of the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom is that business make profit by reducing their operating cost by ignoring the social problems that they cause. To solve the social problems, the professor founded four nonprofits. However, through decades of experience doing this, the professor discovers that they are making little progress. He found the fundamental of this is the scale, so he thinks business should notice “the new thinking”, which is the real profit is made by solving the social problems. For example, business used to cause pollution and does not provide safe workplace to employees, because dealing with pollution is expensive, and they can save money from not providing a safe workplace. The new thinking is the business can reduce waste of resources, making the business more efficient and productive. And providing a safe working environment, leading to less accidents caused, so the business can save money from dealing with the accidents and make more profit. So solving social issues has “fundamentally deep synergy” with economic effectiveness. To create social value and economical value simultaneously is called share value. The way to enable shared value in business, and change the way business seeing itself, is that the government and NGOs pushing the progress, by working in partnerships with businesses.

1. Do you agree? Why or why not?