Creating Shared Value in the Educational sector : The contributions of CSV to the Educational sector, through social impact organizations

Sammanfattning: Many developing countries lack the financial resources to fulfill their basic educational needs. Consequently, individuals are unable to move out of poverty. The challenge lies in undertaking innovative and effective actions towards a substantial change while stimulating the Creating Shared Value (CSV) “which involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society” (Porter & Kramer, 2011, p. 4). Mexico is one of the affected countries by unequal educational opportunities. Additionally, the country experiences difficulty in coming up with improvements that can boost the investments that the government and private initiative have made in the education system.   This thesis aims to contribute to the development of the Creating Shared Value theory. This will be achieved by investigating two firms in the Mexican Educational sector through social impact organizations. Three objectives were proposed and categorized into: economic impact of the firm, social impact of the firm, educational development and firm strategy. This helps to answer the main research question: “How can Creating Shared Value contribute to the Educational sector in a developing country through social impact organizations?”. The purpose of this thesis was attained through a multiple-holistic case study strategy with two participant organizations (FINAE and EDUCAFIN) and data was collected by conducting semi-structured expert interviews. The thesis studies the different practices and strategies performed by the two organizations, and proves the benefits of applying the theories of Creating Shared Value. Moreover, it demonstrates that Creating Shared Value is strongly applicable within the Educational field in Mexico. Furthermore, the findings highlight a remarkable distinction between the organizations due to innovative business strategies and an extensive adaptability to the market. Moreover, both firms welcome win-win relationships between each one of them and the society. This leads to numerous benefits for both parties such as increasing revenues in the case of the organizations, and education development in the case of the Mexican community. In addition, our results suggest that Creating Shared Value is a novel topic because the investigated organizations were unable to identify the Creating Shared Value concepts in the activities they are currently performing.