Corporate citizenship: innovation and social enterprise - 12 years experience of corporate social innovation and sustainable partnerships around the world

This paper reports on thirty influential initiatives and ‘social innovations’ pioneered by the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) over the last 12 years. It is claimed that these initiatives are having an impact on development and are being adopted more widely.

The examples given of innovation by the IBLF in development methods and approaches include innovative projects and strategies in: promoting business partnerships for development; promoting corporate social responsibility; enterprise and human resource development; industry sector and technology partnerships; emerging social issues; and experience andleaning exchange.

Amongst many of the key lessons learnt by the IBLF over the last 12 years, seven are highlighted in this paper:

• the value of social enterprise can be intangible, slow to yield results and difficult to measure, but when it is successful it has more sustainable impact than other developmentapproaches
• to be effective, social enterprise must always be action-oriented
• collective business action and cross-sectorpartnerships can be far more effective than organisations working on their own. However, the partners must recognize that different sectors have different contributions to make and that the core 'business' functions of all those involved must be central
• collaboration will only be effective where trust can be built; risks taken and shared; complementary goals are recognised and there is consistent, visionary leadership
• partnerships never work simply by calling for them - partnership-building processes and capacity-building are vital - using high levels ofbusiness and professional skills to undertake the complexities of multi-stakeholder management
• partnerships at international levels require strong commitment to: understand and respond tocultural diversity; creativity and empowerment
• impact will be greatest where the focus is strategic and where the initiative is capable of replication and scale. Integration into policyframeworks is often a a key aspect of getting to scale

The IBLF maintains that it is vital to take great care not to impose solutions and to ensure local ownership. Ideas always need to be adapted to local circumstances and cultures and the result of this adaptation itself brings highly valued lessons.