Integrated sustainable performance management systems: A case study on Italian benefit corporations

Today, to integrate sustainable development goals into business, an overall integrated sustainable performance management system — to implement and measure these global goals — is needed. In a short timeframe, the benefit impact assessment (BIA) — elaborated by B Lab, utilized by benefit corporations (a new and emerging hybrid type of prosocial business) and adopted by the United Nations — became the most comprehensive indicator to evaluate company practices against SDGs. Italy was the first sovereign country to insert the benefit corporation legislation after the US and analyze the effectiveness of the BIA. This prompted us to address our attention to the integration of benefit-driven indicators, adopted by Italian B Corps into their performance management systems, and to analyze if these indicators are used by managers to support internal decision-making. To achieve this goal, cross-sector semi-structured interviews were conducted in seven Italian certified benefit corporations. Relevant to both researchers and practitioners, our review provides a useful snapshot of how the BIA is developing as an assessment and how value-based organizations are moving toward an integrated sustainable performance management system

The UN Global Compact SDG Action Manager: how benefit corporations and purpose-driven businesses are driving the change

The financial crisis together with new social and environmental challenges have shown the limits of the profit-centric shareholder supremacy model which has created material wealth at the expense of both the environment and the people living in it. A profound transformation of the economic and social ecosystem is occurring where companies are expected to become actors of change and put in place sustainability-driven practices that create value for the community by addressing its needs and challenges (Weaver, Trevino, e Cochran 1999). It is evident that the traditional economic short-term mindset in corporate decision-making hampers long-term commitments to sustainability, stakeholders and society (Slawinski e Bansal 2015; Slawinski et al. 2017) and that organizational prioritizations must include social and environmental practices. This brought to the convergence of the profit and non-profit sectors towards new hybrid forms of for-profit and for-benefit organizations (Billis 2010) and practices that define teal and flourishing enterprises. On the one hand, Benefit Corporations, B Corps, and Social Purpose Companies, with their reinforced commitment to sustainability-driven practices and abound mission to generate a public benefit are a clear example of the convergence of for-profit companies toward a strong sustainability focus (Nigri, Michelini, e Grieco 2017; Hiller 2013). At the same time, as more companies change their statutes, there is a shift of the non-profit sector towards a more business-oriented approach. The aim of this paper is therefore to shed light on the SDG Action Manager, a web-based impact management solution that enables businesses to take action on the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations Global Compact, aimed to provide organizations with an opportunity to learn about, manage, and improve their sustainability performance. Moreover, the paper is aimed at pinpointing how the integration with the benefit impact assessment can drive the aforementioned transformation

The Mondora Method: Quantum Leaders in Benefit Corporations

Abstract: Sustainable development is now seen as the business paradigm for the 21st century and poses a significant dilemma for managers, which is to balance economic goals, environmental impact and social development. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to sustainable entrepreneurship as a concept combining triple bottom line (TBL) aspects since introducing social and ecological values and goals, in addition to economic ones, is seen as a long-term strategy for survival and value creation. Italy’s socio-economic context where there are a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and social enterprises has proven to be a good field for new hybrid forms of forpurpose business. This paper is a single case in-depth study conducted over three years (2017–2019) analyzing Mondora, a certified and legally recognized Benefit Corporation that has introduced full-spectrum teal practices in its governance structure and is shifting the paradigm as a flourishing enterprise. The aim of this paper is to analyze the legal and governance framework of Mondora as a benefit corporation and delineate a best-case example that embraces new leadership practices as a pilot for future research on benefit corporations. The implications lie in the fact that the typology of the social entrepreneur present in benefit corporations has the characteristics of the quantum leader outlined by Tsao and Laszlo (2019)