For Purpose/For Profit Orgs

An Agenda for Management Innovation: 25 Challenges

January 27, 2009

Tweet 1. Ensure that management’s work serves a higher purpose. Management, both in theory and practice, must orient itself to the achievement of noble, socially significant goals. 2. Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems. There’s a need for processes and practices that reflect the interdependence of all stakeholder groups. 3. […]

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Read Business Books — for charity!

January 24, 2009

Tweet Here’s a great example of the concepts of "Co-donating", "Perkonomics", "Brand-butlering" and "Trynomics" — all at once. For anyone else who’s a business book junkie like me, this offer is hard to resist. It’s also a great example of being authentic. From the folks at ChangeThis and 800-CEO-READ : Continuing a tradition we began […]

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“What if you could buy social justice?” or Does ‘values shopping’ really make a difference?

December 15, 2008

Tweet Can for-profit, for-purpose organizations make a difference, if we patronize them? Thinking about an organization’s authenticity invites us to examine simultaneously what the organization does and how it does it. When we think about organizations being authentic, we assume that organizations have their business purpose — the thing that they’re out there to "do", […]

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B Corporations and Employer Branding

November 27, 2008

Tweet Branding your organization as being "for purpose and for profit" might help you attract just the right kind of talented job applicants. At least that’s what the HR Folks at Reece Computer Systems seem to believe. In their job posting for a Consulting Engineer , Reece Computer Systems not only describes the position and […]

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Musselman’s Applesauce Refocusing on Its Core Identity

November 17, 2008

Tweet Claiming your authentic identity can be good for your organization. Sometimes, getting back to the core of “who you are” can help your organization create a distinctive position relative to competitors. This is the reasoning behind the new ad campaign by Musselman’s (the company photo credit : fauxto_digit that makes applesauce, apple juice, and […]

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Organizational Identity, Employee Branding and Political Contributions: Should you care if The Body Shop leans Republican?

October 27, 2008

Tweet The Body Shop is Republican? Anita Roddick must be rolling over in her grave. Released last week were the results of a study that shows how organizations have supported the Republican and Democratic parties. The data include direct corporate support (through Political Action Committees) and/or the support of these organizations’ employees (through individual donations). […]

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4 Ways Palin Creates a Fake “Reality”

October 3, 2008

Tweet In my earlier post, Use Real Authenticity to Establish Fake Authenticity: Sarah Palin shows organizations how , I argue that Palin is a useful role model for organizations in the way that she has gone about creating "Fake Authenticity." Establishing Fake Authenticity has two steps, and in this post I’ll discuss Step 1: Creating […]

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Obama’s Website Made Me Cry

September 23, 2008

Tweet It moved me from intent to action. It snuck past my shield of cynicism. It struck me at the core of what I care about. And it made me remember that what really connects people and organizations is the chance for them both to be authentic. What hooked me wasn’t the way the Campaign […]

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3 Things the New York Jets Can Teach You About Authenticity

September 10, 2008

Tweet Who knew that the New York Jets knew so much about being authentic? The New York Jets moved into their new training facility in Florham Park, NJ, just last week. Stories about the new building (designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP) describe it as huge, high-tech, state of the art, and light filled. […]

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Black Organizations: Authenticity through "an obligation to our own"?

September 5, 2008

Tweet What makes an organization or business authentically “Black”? [Or for that matter, what makes an organization authentically “feminist”, authentically “Mormon”, authentically “Republican”, and so on?] By my definition, an organization is authentically “Black” not when the majority of its members or employees are Black, but when the organization promotes the interests of the Black […]

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