This assignment asks you first to evaluate Hormel Foods whether (to what extent) the firm has embedded corporate sustainability in strategy, using your own collected information and using your knowledge from the Creating Shared Value literature from Porter and Kramer (2002, 2006, 2011).
After having determined to what extent to firm already applies the CSV concept, and having assessed potential sustainability risks it faces, you will be asked to propose your own new CSV initiative for your firm, along with motivation: the expected impact of the proposal on the corporation’s business results/value-drivers and the impact on society/sustainability.
Subsequently, you will be asked whether the firm’s ability to achieve (your) CSV (proposal) is supported by the ‘governance mechanisms’ of the firm that we have focused on in the course. The objective of this assignment is the following:
• to assess based on real company-specific data the degree to which a company adopts sustainability strategies, policies and practices that are consistent with the concept of Creating Shared Value;
• to understand sustainability-risks that companies might face according to recent academic literature (theories/evidence) and judge how material these risks are for a specific (assigned) company;
• to translate the concept of Creating Shared Value to a new CSV initiative that has positive expected impact on society/sustainability and, by doing so, has a positive effect on the firm’s business performance;
• use key insights from academic literature on the relation between corporate governance and corporate sustainability (theories/evidence) in order to assess whether a real (assigned) company has governance/compensation mechanisms in place that promote Creating Shared Value through a focus on material sustainability issues.
Some useful links:
https://www.hormelfoods.com/
https://www.hormelfoods.com/responsibility/
https://www.hormelfoods.com/responsibility/corporate-responsibility-reports/
CSR Report 2019: https://csr.hormelfoods.com/
https://s25.q4cdn.com/701713307/files/doc_financials/2019/ar/2019_Annual_Report-2019-12-18.pdf