Accelerating Social Impact: How Social Purpose Businesses are Influencing Systems Change

Kajzer Mitchell received a SSHRC grant to investigate how social purpose businesses engage with others to advance their social purpose, in partnership with the Canadian Purpose Economy Project.

With the growing importance of sustainability, businesses are called upon to not only focus on their own environmental and social impact, but to utilize their spheres of influence to accelerate sustainability action more broadly. To do so, businesses need to transform the ecosystem in which they operate and change "the rules of the game" (Waddock, 2020, p.3). This requires deeper systemic transformations (WBCSD, 2020), where businesses and key stakeholders work together to engage in upstream and downstream behavioral change work (Stanley, 2020; Stephan et al., 2013). This includes educating and empowering customers, advocating for new policies, and changing established industry-wide and societal norms around corporate purpose and consumption (Falk, n.d.; Ingilizian & Wright, 2022; Strandberg, 2022).

While some large multinational corporations are publicly committed to accelerating system transformations, it is less understood how smaller and more medium-sized businesses are approaching this challenge, and research has recognized that these types of organisations often fall short in this regard (Burch et al., 2022; Martins et al., 2022). However, some purpose-driven Canadian businesses are breaking the mold by utilizing their "societal reason for being" to advocate for systemic change beyond their organizational boundaries (Strandberg, 2022). These businesses, "whose enduring reason for being is to create a better world" (United Way BC Social Purpose Institute, n.d. p.2-3), leverage their spheres of influence and collaborate with others to deliver on their purpose. Understanding how they succeed, when other businesses fall short, is thus critical.

This research will partner with the Canadian Purpose Economy Project (CPEP) to address the following question: How are Canadian social purpose businesses mobilizing and utilizing their spheres of influence and work with others to deliver on their purpose and scale impact beyond their own business? The objectives of this research are to 1) map how social purpose businesses interact and work with stakeholders and other actors to achieve transformational change, and identify the enablers and barriers they encounter in the process, 2) develop case studies of best and emerging practices to co-design a framework with the Partner that will provide social purpose businesses with a roadmap of how they can utilize their spheres of influence and work with others to accelerate progress on their social purpose, and 3) extend theory and practices of social purpose businesses.

This proposed research will build and strengthen the relationships between Royal Roads University, and the Canadian
Purpose Economy Project by providing the necessary funding to co-create new knowledge on how social purpose businesses engage with others to accelerate system-wide change. It supports the convening efforts underway by CPEP to "amplify the stories of social purpose business in action" (Social Purpose in Canada Status Report, 2022, p. 2). CPEP will help with recruitment of social purpose businesses and thought leaders, and will provide intellectual leadership and applied expertise throughout the project, including input on case study and framework design. CPEP will also contribute to knowledge mobilization, for example by hosting the case studies and framework on their website, and by engaging in other research knowledge dissemination and promotion activities where possible.

It is expected that the research will contribute to efforts by scholarly researchers to better understand how purpose driven organizations can accelerate positive impact, and will respond to practitioner calls for best practices on how businesses can use their spheres of influence to drive change at scale (Sustainable Brands, n.d.; MaRS, 2023; Waddock, 2020). The case studies and accompanying framework will provide social purpose businesses, and other organisations looking to implement a social purpose, with a roadmap of how to best mobilize and utilize their resources and networks, and collaborate externally to execute on their purpose and drive impact.