Dear Reader,
I sincerely hope that you didn't think I was being too tough on Michael Porter in my March 13 posting. I was positively obsequious compared to the Schumpeter columnist in this week's Economist. He thinks that it is "merely a pious hope" that shared value will trigger the next wave of innovation. He accuses Porter of providing a "paucity of evidence" to back his argument and of "play[ing} down the difficult trade-offs that businesses often have to make." And he worries that Porter's theory "risks giving politicians carte blanche to meddle in the private sector."
You can read the complete article at http://www.economist.com/node/18330445
1 comment:
I read the Schumpeter column in the Economist about the Porter/Kramer Harvard Business Review article on creating shared value, but did not think that it sounded interesting enough to read the article. However, after reading your March 13 post, I took a look at their article. Your conclusion that Porter/Kramer are a whole lot better at creating jargon than at reinventing capitalism is persuasive. Of course, since creating jargon is one of the defacto job descriptions of many successful academics, it is not surprising that they show some flair in that area. They will probably make some money on the speaker circuit preaching the virtues of creating shared value and might even snag some lucrative consulting assignments. Since Harvard is in the picture, in a few years they might also produce a book with case studies on how some big companies have served society, increased profits, and regained public trust as a result of their pursuit of creating shared value. Down the line, because trendiness is not just a fad, some other enterprising academics will create more jargon that will be a minor, but personally profitable, act of creative destruction directed at moving aside (renaming) the Porter/Kramer concept of creating shared value.
L. Scott Miller
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