Thesis (MPhil (Sustainable Development Planning and Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / In the run-up to the Millennium Development Goals of 2015, the United Nations Global
Compact and others are targeting major corporations to play an active leadership role in
promoting sustainable development. Increasingly, corporations are encouraged to do so
while pursuing profit-making business opportunities yielding social good in developing
countries. Beyond corporate citizenship, the ideal of “inclusive capitalism” is
popularized by C.K. Prahalad, who evangelizes to corporations about the benefits of
marketing to the untapped market opportunity offered by the 4 billion poor consumers
that make up the “Bottom of the Pyramid”. Hewlett Packard, under former CEO
Carley Fiorina embraced this concept; and, supported by President Thabo Mbeki,
launched a high profile project to test this proposition at the 2002 UN World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Launched as a three year Public Private
Partnership between Hewlett-Packard, the Limpopo Province and the Mogalakwena
Municipality, the project aimed at “creating breakthrough models of sustainable
development, not altruism, at global replication, not local exclusivity”. Influenced by the
author’s status as an IT industry insider in Africa, this narrative case study draws on
privileged access to sources. While a single case study cannot serve to validate or
discredit a development model, it can effectively expose tensions and contradictions
within a model
The case examines what happened in the company’s search for these “breakthrough
models” in South Africa, and reveals how the competing logics between business realities
and development imperatives are not easily reconciled. Early language around the
inclusive capitalism or BOP discourse emphasizing unlimited business opportunities and
poverty eradication through profits may set unrealistic expectations for business
executives.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/1665 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | McFalls, Ricarda |
| Contributors | Hamann, Ralph, University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Management and Planning. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 3064110 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | University of Stellenbosch |
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