Proactive Corporate Sustainability via Social Innovation—A Case Study of the Hennes & Mauritz Grand Challenge in Bangladesh

Veronika Tarnovskaya, Sara Melén Hånell and Daniel Tolstoy
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Veronika Tarnovskaya: Department of Business Administration, Lund School of Economics and Management, Lund University, 223 63 Lund, Sweden
Sara Melén Hånell: Department of Marketing and Strategy, Stockholm School of Economics, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
Daniel Tolstoy: Department of Marketing and Strategy, Stockholm School of Economics, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-19

Abstract: The purpose of the study is to explore how a multinational enterprise can use social innovations to drive change and solve grand challenges in an emerging market context. This paper brings market-shaping literature into a sustainability context, particularly by studying the implementation of social innovations in an emerging market context. Specifically, the study involves an in-depth qualitative study of H&M’s fair living wages program in Bangladesh. We find that H&M is tackling utterances of grand challenges revealed by orchestrating social innovation in collaborations with local stakeholders. Social innovation is carried out in ongoing projects involving multiple stakeholders. The study contributes to current literature by revealing that multinational enterprises indeed can use social innovation to drive change in emerging markets, although this requires long-term commitment, an ability and willingness to shape the surrounding business environment, and a prominent standing among key stakeholders.

Keywords: corporate sustainability; market shaping; social innovation; proactive CS; emerging markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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