This guide note is intended to help with the completion of assessment two. The content below covers matters of suggested approaches in terms of structure and content. What is not dealt with in detail here are techniques of searching the literature. Please let us know if you need extra guidance in this regard as there are considerable resources available through the library services.
| Coursework brief: Critically discuss the impact of Porter and Kramer’s introduction of the idea labelled ‘creating shared value’ on the debate over organisational purpose. Please undertake this task with reference to appropriate literature that contributes to ‘creating shared value’ and with reference to your own organisation. |
The assessment is asking you to critically review the development of the literature on a particular aspect of the wider debate on organisational purpose, namely the idea of ‘creating shared value’ (CSV).
CSV is a concept that has some overlap with strategy, being originated by Michael Porter, a widely cited strategy academic, together with his co-author Mark Kramer. Additionally, CSV could be argued to sit within the field of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR), while also drawing from principles of stakeholder theory. Those who have critiqued CSV have pointed to the debt the idea owes to both of those fields. At the very least, these arguments show the variety of language and labels that are evident when we look at the fundamental question of organisational purpose.
This assessment has two main components to it. Firstly, you are being asked to review the research literature on CSV, and secondly you should reflect on the extent to which CSV is applied in your organisation. The proportion of words should be roughly 70% on the literature review and 30% on the application. This is a very approximate guide only, since you will be using some words in the introduction and conclusion that will inevitably blend these two aspects of the paper.
The rest of this guide note focuses mainly on reviewing the research literature, since this is the part of the assessment that likely to be less familiar to you in terms of both content and technique.
Literature reviews are an important aspect of academic research and can serve a number of purposes, largely depending on where they are used. For example, in a master’s thesis they are used to critically evaluate the research area and may also show that there is a gap in the field that needs to be researched further. The idea of a ‘gap’ in the research is a bit of a simplification; it is more likely that the literature review highlights an ongoing debate to which the thesis will contribute. In a doctoral thesis the literature review should provide support for the currency of a research topic in a similar way but is also meant to give a very detailed and critical exploration of what is already known about a particular subject. This then allows the researcher to show where her or his doctoral work contributes to our current understanding of the research area.
For the purposes of a masters-level assessment such as yours, the literature review is designed to show that the student has a detailed understanding of a topic area and can form a judgement about the field, based on the research published to date.
In this case, the specific topic is ‘creating shared value’ (CSV), a term that gained prominence in the paper published by Porter and Kramer in 2011. However, this is grounded in deeper ideas and, as mentioned, is arguably linked to fields such as corporate social responsibility and stakeholder theory. One could go further and argue that CSV has roots in particular versions of CSR and stakeholder theory, namely those parts of the topics that are concerned with using CSR and stakeholder management as deliberate organisational strategy rather than focusing on their moral or ethical dimensions.
As is discussed in the relevant lecture and seminar, the link between CSR and organisational success is a major strand of the CSR literature, based initially in an older debate over the very legitimacy of CSR. What we mean by the ‘legitimacy’ of CSR is the question of whether CSR is even an appropriate activity for businesses to be undertaking.
This legitimacy debate was given particular impetus by the economist Milton Friedman in his 1970 article entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Make a Profit.” The argument over whether CSR is even an appropriate (legitimate) activity for business then quickly transformed into research on whether CSR could contribute to business success. The logic being that a positive link would establish CSR as a legitimate organisational activity, at least in the eyes of economists like Milton Friedman. There will be a detailed lecture given on the ‘business case’ literature as part of the module.
As with many fields of study, a question which at the outset might seem relatively simple – namely, ‘are there organisational advantages to be gained by being socially responsible?’ soon acquires increased sophistication. As the saying goes: “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that…”. We will trace how this debate has developed in our lecture session on the module.
Coming back to your essay, given the complexity of how what we are labelling ‘organisational purpose’ has developed, drawing as it does on various ideas, perhaps your first task to complete in your essay will be to establish the boundaries of what you are going to write about.
For example, in your introduction you may wish to try and define some terms that will crop up in your essay. This should clearly include CSV, but you will also need to introduce CSR and stakeholder theory or any other concepts that will form part of your arguments.
This should not occupy too many words but will give you the chance to show that you know this area to be complex and contested. It would be a good idea to use actual definitions taken from a paper or book you have read, even though you may also want to show that you know definitions can be argued about in such a complex area.
These definitions will be part of your ‘boundary setting’ in the introduction, but it is also good practice to tell your reader how the rest of the assessment will be structured. It sounds basic, but in a long paper the use of these ‘signposts’ helps readability considerably.
Once you have set the boundaries of your work and told the reader what areas you will focus on (and how you will structure your essay) then you are into the main part of the review.
This is where you have to show that you have read a wide variety of research in the fields you are writing about. You will also have to show that you understand why (as with all academic fields) there are agreements and disagreements about the central topic covered by the title above.
With literature reviews at this level, to get good marks you will have to demonstrate not only the breadth of reading (and understanding) but that you have considered these agreements and disagreements in the field. The best way of thinking about this is to compare and contrast what different writers have found. This means simply that you initially seek out the similarities and differences. This will tell you whether there is an overall consensus (or agreement) in the field about the question you are examining. Be aware though that you can only attain any kind of understanding from reading a wide variety of journal articles. Although this can be a time consuming and confusing process initially, as you get increasingly familiar with the topic, this will also begin to tell you what the ongoing debates and difficult questions or issues might be.
Clearly you have to think about the structure of the main part of any literature review. As made clear in the previous paragraph, it cannot be simply a summary of who said what and when. Most academic fields logically develop over time and so it is almost always possible to use a chronological structure. In other words, you begin with early work in the field and effectively ‘tell the story’ of how thinking developed as more and more research added to our knowledge of a particular issue or question over time. The area I have asked you to research falls into this pattern of development.
When you begin to read around the topic you may go through a somewhat painful initial period when it is all quite unfamiliar. However, as you read more articles you will begin to see the same names and ideas being referenced and you will build up a picture of the overall landscape quite quickly. After some time, you may even be in a position to skim-read some articles quickly because much of it may be familiar ground.
So the main part of your review will show where an idea originated, and how the arguments and research have developed over the years. But you also need to bring the story up to date so that you explain what the continuing and ongoing debates are, in the field you are reviewing. What questions in the field remain to be addressed?
At the end of the literature review you will need a concluding discussion. Most obviously, in an assessment like this you need the conclusion to answer the problem I have set. What does the literature tell is about how CSV has developed and how useful is it to help us understand organisational purpose – recalling that this term refers both to strategic intent and wider notions of corporate responsibility. The conclusion to the review should also summarise the key issues that have emerged from your review. How are different labels and ideas from varied fields related? For example, are there underlying similarities between CSR and stakeholder theory? How have these ideas led us to CSV? Is CSV a useful addition to an already crowded debate? What are the main ideas that seem to be agreed upon by most? Are there clearly unresolved issues in the field that need further research?
Please note I am not expecting you to treat this list of hypothetical questions as a ‘checklist’ to be answered! I am simply rehearsing such questions to indicate the kind of issues you may want to consider in your final discussion of the literature.
The section on applying CSV to your own organisation should build on what you have learned about the key aspects of CSV and reflect on the extent to which these are evident. There may be little that directly relates to the language of CSV, but there may well be (for example) commitments to acknowledging the needs of stakeholders, or acting in a way that respects community, staff, customers and so on. Your organisation may overtly use the language of social responsibility, or sustainability for example. Your task in this section is to research your own context to understand what statements, processes and structures could be thought of as somehow relating to CSV or the ideas underlying CSV. For example, in a public sector context there is more likely to be language around stakeholders than corporate responsibility, and in a Welsh context the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (2015) could influence the
There will be sessions organised as part of the main workshop and subsequent seminars to allow further discussion of this application. We will begin to practice this in group discussion on the afternoon of Saturday 15th.
On the practicalities of searching for papers, the handbook offers examples of the types of journals in which to search. In addition, some of the lecture presentations I deliver will have useful reference lists at the end. My advice is to use a search engine like ‘EBSCOHost Business Source Complete’ to track down relevant article – it has a search function that allows you to search for authors, keywords in titles and abstracts and so on. One helpful hint; some articles themselves contain detailed literature reviews. If you can find these (the more recent the better) then they can lead you to other very useful references quite quickly.
Finally – for the basics of word count, presentation, and so on, please make sure you also read the instructions contained in the handbook on how to approach this assessment.
