Social Innovation

Bertrand Quélin is professor of Strategy and the holder of the Bouygues-HEC Paris Chair in ‘Smart City and the Common Good’. He has been spearheading research on ways public bodies and private companies partner up to create both social and economic value. We discuss how the partnerships rely on a form of hybridization relying on three mechanisms: contractual, institutional and the ability to regularly partner up with public authorities.

The case study on Alenvi, by HEC Paris graduate Léa Veiga-Planells and Strategy Professor Laurence Lehmann-Ortega, demonstrates how managerial innovation enables a business model to be reinvented in a mature and non-digitized sector and to assess the role that business purpose can play in shaping company's strategy.

Climate change and agricultural soils degradation are two of the leading environmental challenges the world currently faces. A universally agreed-upon solution is developing more circular patterns in supply chains to minimize the negative ecological impact of human activities potentially. In that regard, waste management can play a significant part in countries' sustainability strategies. 

Just days after the conclusion of the Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) in Barcelona, HEC Paris Bouygues Professor Bertrand Quélin and SASI Master's graduate Isaac Smadja publish a key study of six award-winning smart cities across the globe. The 238-page eBook is the result of a partnership between Bouygues and HEC in the context of the school’s Smart City & the Common Good Chair. We exchange informally with Professor Quélin about the advantages of, and challenges to, tomorrow’s cities.

Mobilize, Renault’s affordable car project case, written by HEC Paris Professor Olivier Chatain, has just been released on the Case Centre platform. This case study explores how an automobile manufacturer creates an ecosystem to provide affordable mobility solutions for those in the suburban areas in France. 

Schneider Electric’s pay-as-you-go solar home systems fund in Kenya case, written by HEC Paris Professor Luc Paugam and Sookyoung Lee of HEC Paris S&O Institute has just been released on the Case Centre platform. This case study explores the concept of hybrid organization, which blurs traditional boundaries between nonprofit and for-profit organizations, reconciling profit motives with community needs. 

Veolia’s Eau du Grand Lyon case, written by HEC Paris Professor Bertrand V. Quélin, Bouygues Chair Professor in Smart City and the Common Good, and Anicet Fangwa, HEC Paris Ph.D. candidate, has just been released on the Case Centre platform. This case study explores how a company might reconcile profit motives with the greater needs of a community’s inhabitants.

The case study “Purposeful Leadership at Best Buy” written by Rodolphe Durand, HEC Paris Professor of Strategy and holder of the Joly Family Purposeful Leadership Chair, has just been released on the Case Centre platform. This case study aims to better understand the characteristics of “Purposeful Leadership” and to identify the conditions of success to impact positively the performance of a company.

Danone’s CEO had to leave his position under the pressure of increasingly powerful and influential activist hedge funds. With their controversial tactics aimed at maximizing shareholder profit, they undermine sustainability practices, which they consider wasteful. Indeed, not only do they tend to suppress the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of the companies they target, they also target companies with stronger CSR records in the first place, as a new study reveals. But its authors Mark DesJardine, Rodolphe Durand, and Emilio Marti also show that these companies can divert the attention of activist hedge funds, and that policymakers and socially minded investors can intervene, too.