Professor Harry Barkema, Professor of Management, Department of Management, and Director, Innovation Co-Creation Lab, LSE
Over the past decade, tens of thousands of social enterprises, companies and NGOs have started serving people at the so-called economic base of the pyramid (BOP), people who live on a few dollars per day or less. These organizations range from service providers (in solar, mobile banking, clean water, health care, etc) to those providing integrated solutions (eg, job creation and training, micro-finance). When and how do these organizations create social value, in addition to being economically successful? Do they create positive or negative outcomes for the target group and for other groups in local communities? How can we design social enterprises, companies and NGOs that create social value for people, based on a real understanding of their needs, aspirations and dreams?
The course begins with an understanding, anchored in anthropology and development, in the economic, social and political opportunities and constraints of people living at the BOP. Next we discuss key insights, concepts, theories, methodologies and tools for designing, implementing and scaling up organizations – companies, social enterprises, and NGOs – to maximize social outcomes while being economically successful.
The course builds on the successful “business model innovation at the BOP” Masters-courses at the LSE. We also share insights from our Innovation Co-Creation Lab. For instance, our research in Africa and India on which leadership styles, social networks, organizational learning and innovation mechanisms enable social outcomes (ie, when, how and why, and for whom?), and how this varies across different stages of organizational growth. We will share insights of research on actual social outcomes for target groups and other groups. What these effects are, positive and negative, and what causes them. We will also share insights from our design and implementation workshops with our ecosystem of partners in South America, Africa, and Asia.
While we will discuss numerous examples of organizational innovations at the BOP in South America, Asia, and Africa, we will also focus on real issues in townships in Cape Town. The format is interactive lectures. However, we won’t just talk. Students will also train new insights, concepts, theories, methodologies and tools by designing, in groups, new business models for one of the townships, aimed at maximizing social goals while being economically successful. The course culminates in student groups presenting these new business models.
Full course outline|
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Harry Barkema is Professor of Management| at the London School of Economics and founding director of LSE’s Innovation Co-Creation Lab|. The Lab generates and diffuses knowledge on organizations and their social impact at the economic base of the pyramid (BOP), and leads practice workshops with companies, social enterprises and NGOs in South America, Africa, and Asia.
Harry has published dozens of articles in top management journals, was twice an associate editor of the leading empirical management journal (Academy of Management Journal|), member of the Board of Governors of the main professional organization in Management (the Academy of Management), won numerous research prizes, honorary professorships, and so on.
He has worked with 100+ organizations designing, implementing and scaling up new business models, including with dozens of companies, social enterprises, and NGOs addressing poverty in South America, Africa and Asia.
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