Building Social Business Models: Lessons from the Grameen Experience

Bertrand Moingeon, Muhammad Yunus and Laurence Lehmann-Ortega
Additional contact information
Bertrand Moingeon: GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Laurence Lehmann-Ortega: School of Management - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Grameen bank, founded in 1976, has both pioneered the development of micro-finance, and created nearly 30 businesses designed to alleviate poverty. The article traces the gradual development of Grameen's expertise in formulating social business models, which require new value propositions, value constellations and profit equations, and as such, resembles business model innovation. The article presents five lessons learned from this experience: three are similar to those of conventional business model innovation - challenging conventional thinking, finding complementary partners and undertaking continuous experimentation; two are specific to social business models: recruiting social-profit-oriented shareholders, and specifying social profit objectives clearly and early. We suggest these new business models - where stakeholders replace shareholders as the focus of value maximization - could empower capitalism to address overwhelming global concerns.

Keywords: Social business; business model; social business model; Grameen; Danone (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (222)

Published in Long Range Planning, 2010, 43 (2-3), pp.308-325. ⟨10.1016/j.lrp.2009.12.005⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00528385

DOI: 10.1016/j.lrp.2009.12.005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().