Managing Shared Value in Multinational Corporations - A multiple case study on three major food companies and their CSV management in the context of global food loss and waste

Abstract

Around one third of all the food produced at a global level is lost or wasted, creating severe negative economic, environmental and social implications. Creating Shared Value (CSV) can help to increase joint incitements along food value chains for collective action towards more sustainable consumption and production patterns, as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Multinational corporations offer potential to undertake this concept and create shared value, however, the complex business environment within these types of organisations can arise as barriers. This study seeks to attain an increased understanding of how and why multinational corporations implement and coordinate CSV activities, in the context of food loss and waste, accomplished through a multiple case study on three global leaders within the food industry. The findings show that CSV must be embedded in organisations’ strategies, tailoring set goals and necessities in both intra and inter-organisational collaborations, hence requiring a common agenda. Internally, this can be done by having a strong organisational culture where reducing food loss and waste becomes natural. Likewise, it is important to increase communicative capabilities across subsidiaries and with the headquarters, where the latter operates as a knowledge facilitator. Large autonomy is given to the subsidiaries, as value is often accrued at a local level. Externally, engagement in networks has shown beneficial for developing a common agenda and alleviate the major challenge of CSV; time, which is not always equally deployed. Within the networks, knowledge can efficiently be shared, and it becomes easier to maintain a common agenda.