Capabilities Needed for Social Value Creation: A Multinational Enterprise Perspective

Increasingly, society looks at the business sector to play its role in creating social value (which consists of ESG, CSR and EDI), as organisations in general possess the financial, technological, and managerial resources needed for this. Multinational enterprises (MNEs), with their significant global and local influence, are especially well-positioned to serve as role models in this respect. The central question, however, is how MNEs can achieve this; specifically, what capabilities are essential for them to create and sustain social value. Current literature, unfortunately, lacks extensive research on these needed organisational capabilities. Therefore, our research aims to identify these capabilities by reviewing literature on social value and high-performance organisations (HPOs), known for their ability to excel across multiple areas, including social value. Using a combination of theoretical review and empirical research through focus groups with personnel from five MNEs, we developed an initial set of capabilities needed by MNEs to drive social value.