Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Stuart L. Hart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0137042329 | ISBN-13: 978-0137042326 | Edition: 3

Today’s era of economic crisis has sent a powerful message: The age of "mercenary" capitalism is ending. We must finally embark on a new age of sustainable, stakeholder-based capitalism. While enlightened executives and policymakers understand the critical need for change, few have tangible plans for making it happen. In Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World, Third Edition, Stuart L. Hart presents new strategies for identifying sustainable products, technologies, and business models that will drive urgently needed growth and help solve social and environmental problems at the same time.

 

Drawing on his experience consulting with top companies and NGOs worldwide, Hart shows how to craft your optimal sustainability strategy and overcome the limitations of traditional "greening" approaches. In this edition, he presents new and updated case studies from the United States and around the world, demonstrating what’s working and what isn’t. He also guides business leaders in building an organizational "infrastructure for sustainability"--one that can survive budgeting and boardrooms, recharging innovation and growth throughout your enterprise. Discover:

 

·         The new business case for pursuing sustainable capitalism

·         Sustainability strategies that go far beyond environmental sensitivity

·         How to fully embed your enterprise in the local context--and why you should

·         Tactics for making long-term sustainability work in a short-term world

 

Editorial Reviews

Review

 

About the Author

Stuart L. Hart is one of the world’s top authorities on the implications of sustainable development and environment for business strategy. He is currently the Samuel C. Johnson Chair in Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. He also serves as Distinguished Fellow at the William Davidson Institute (University of Michigan) and President of Enterprise for a Sustainable World. Previously, he taught strategic management and founded both the Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE) at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Corporate Environmental Management Program (now the Erb Institute Dual Master’s Program) at the University of Michigan.

 

Hart’s consulting clients range from DuPont and SC Johnson to Unilever and General Electric. He is an internationally recognized speaker and has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses on the topic of sustainable business around the world.

 

He wrote the seminal article “Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World,” which won the McKinsey Award for Best Article in Harvard Business Review in 1997 and helped launch the movement for corporate sustainability. With C.K. Prahalad, he also wrote the groundbreaking 2002 article, “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,” which provided the first articulation of how business could profitably serve the needs of the four billion poor in the developing world. He invites readers to email him at [e-mail] and to visit his website at www.stuartlhart.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Prentice Hall; 3 edition (June 25, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137042329
• ISBN-13: 978-0137042326
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Stuart L. Hart is the Samuel C. Johnson Chair in Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School of Management and Founder of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University. He is also the President and Founder of Enterprise for a Sustainable World. Previously he was the Hans Zulliger Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the Kenan Flagler Business School and Founder of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the University of North Carolina. He was also the Founding Director of the Corporate Environmental Management Program at the University of Michigan (now the Erb Institute's Dual Masters Program).

He is one of the world's leading authorities on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. Professor Hart has published over 70 papers and authored or edited seven books, with over 5,000 Google Scholar citations in all. Hart wrote the seminal article "Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World," which won the McKinsey Award for Best Article in the Harvard Business Review in 1997, and helped launch the movement for corporate sustainability. With C.K. Prahalad, he also wrote the path-breaking 2002 article, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," which first articulated how business could profitably serve the needs of the four billion poor in the developing world. His best-selling 2005 book, Capitalism at the Crossroads (Wharton School Publishing) was recognized by Cambridge University as one of the top 50 books on sustainability of all time. A third edition of the book was published in 2010. With Ted London, Hart is also the author of a newly released book entitled Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid. In this book, Hart and other leading BoP thought and practice leaders show how to apply second-generation BoP innovations, techniques, and business models to build successful and sustainable BoP businesses.

He has served as consultant, advisor, or management educator for dozens of corporations and organizations including Dupont, S. C. Johnson, General Electric, Baxter Healthcare, Wal Mart, the World Economic Forum, and the Clinton Global Initiative. He is an internationally recognized speaker and has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses on the topic of sustainable business around the world.

Stuart Hart earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester (General Science), Master's degree from Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (Environmental Management), and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (Planning and Strategy).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Does not fulfill its grandiose title, but may offer some worthy insights into social entrepreneurship October 14, 2011

By L. R. Jimenez

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

There are only two paths going forward - a radically different form of commerce that uplifts the entire human community or depletion of the remaining natural and cultural capital with prolonged human strife as a result. This is the fork in the road described by Stuart Hart in Capitalism at the Crossroads, released June 2010 on its 3rd edition.

This is a book about capitalism on the throes of the greatest economic recession of our time. However, neither the fundamental pillars of the capitalist system nor the causes of the recession are the focus here. Rather the main themes in the book suggest new strategies and competencies that companies could adopt to change the system from within. The focus here is to effect institutional change from within the capitalist system.

While the commandments handed down to industry are broad and well articulated, a discussion on how government could enable or encourage firm behavior is largely absent. In Hart's opinion, the role of the private sector and entrepreneurial base must take an unprecedented role because "incremental governmental policies are insufficient and large-scale, crash programs are likely to fail." Hart's vision of the new green economy is painted broadly, but in his canvas government is no more than a smudge.

The author makes the most of the post-recession mood to impress urgency in the book's premise - the world is on a collision course and only the private sector can avert catastrophe. In the future - if the higher road is taken - sustainable enterprises and civil society work together on creating opportunity at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) and corporations compete to "seize the opportunity for sustainable development."

To calibrate the reader's understanding of the nexus between industry, community and environment, Hart begins by addressing the global economy as "three different, overlapping economies." Representing the bulk of wealth and waste, the money economy is comprised by the productive and consumptive sectors, driving industrialization, urbanization and ecological exploitation. In contrast, the traditional economy is the village-based way of life and spans across all continents. It represents half of humanity - most live in poverty - and growing by about 90 million people per year. The nature's economy "consists of the natural systems and resources that support the money and the traditional economies." But by all measures - water stocks, soil health, biodiversity diversity and abundance, global temperatures nature's economy is in grave decline.

As with nearly every "green economy" book, the author establishes early on the business case for why companies must take action. Given Hart's extensive work on social entrepreneurship, it is no surprise his definition of sustainable enterprise goes beyond the environmental sustainability definition. The prototype 21st century sustainable firm is in the community development business as well.

By the time the first 100 pages have gone by, Hart has already put in question the future of international development, established the limitations and ineffectiveness of past public policy, and attempted to organize the cluttered mindscape of sustainability buzzwords into a 2x2 matrix dubbed the Shareholder Value Model. This framework represents mileposts on the road to sustainability. Along the journey, firms should acquire capabilities in resource efficiency, radical transactiveness, disruptive innovation, and social entrepreneurship. The rest of the book is devoted to these topics.

Some of his insights are obvious and have been considered more interestingly elsewhere. For example, he introduces the concept of disruptive innovation by quoting economist Joseph Shumpeter, who insisted that disequilibrium was the driving force of capitalism. New breakthrough technologies destabilize markets dominated by incumbent technologies and are able to transform industries and societies into entirely novel growth and development pathways. There is little doubt that the economy is driven by firms that thrive during these transformation periods. He takes too many pages to state that sustainability is a driver of disequilibrium - hardly a novel concept.

Of disapproval as well is the rapidity with which the author disses the entire international development movement as he makes the point that private-sector firms will be the ones to pull half of humanity out of poverty. For this, he exhorts companies to become social entrepreneurs and become indigenous in the countries they operate. While there may be profits at the Bottom of the Pyramid, I doubt industry can provide in the developing world what it cannot even provide in the developed world - affordable health, secure employment, and a pristine environment.

This is a book that at broad strokes paints an idealist and hopeful picture of the 21st social responsible firm. It is not a book about the systemic changes free capitalist societies should introduce to transform capitalism into a platform of prosperity for all, not just a few. By dismissing policy and poverty economics with a careless stroke, I cannot recommend this book for other than considering his views on social entrepreneurship - which won't take the better part of an hour. (from robertojimenez.me)

5.0 out of 5 stars An important milestone in addressing sustainable development February 16, 2013

By Verd Tomkinson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Professor Hart's scholarship and simple writing style combine to make this book compulsive reading. The core argument that sustainability delivers both benefits, from taking the risks arising from addressing the challenges of that form of development, and that there is no realistic alternative, is well grounded. The case that business is uniquely capable and resourced to address some very significant issues, such as dealing with externalities, is possibly over-done. The particular organisational structure of business is not fully attuned towards social democracy and there have been colossal failures on it's part that have not been fully acknowledged. The model has some way to run before it can be truly judged. In the meantime this book is an important milestone.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A useful and very highly recommended read that shouldn't be overlooked for those concerned about the economic future September 17, 2010

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Paperback

More than ever, the power of capitalism is in doubt. "Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World" discusses capitalism in the future where the rules of capitalism will have to be reinvented to deal with the problems that have been created over the past few decades. From focusing on sustainable money, environmental issues, the social applications, and more, "Capitalism at the Crossroads" is a useful and very highly recommended read that shouldn't be overlooked for those concerned about the economic future.