Business Strategy – The case of Nestlé:
CIBUL has pursued a research agenda that centers on the economic, spillover and societal effects of foreign direct investment (e.g., Buckley, Clegg and Wang, 2007; Kafouros and Buckley, 2008; Buckley, 2009). This research stream resulted in the development of a conceptual framework which can be used by multinational firms and governments to assess a company’s overall economic, innovation and social impacts on various stakeholder groups.
The conceptual framework attracted the interest of senior managers of Nestlé who invited CIBUL to evaluate the value created by the company and write an executive report. In July 2009, members of CIBUL presented the research results to five senior executives, including the Head of Corporate Communication and an Adjoint Director. The conceptual framework that CIBUL developed was adopted by Nestlé to inform the value-creation and corporate communication strategy of the company. It resulted in an innovative and inclusive corporate communication plan called “Creating Shared Value”.
The company testifies that our conceptual framework helped it to demonstrate how its actions create value for the business (in economic, innovation, social and environmental terms) that is shared with those societies where Nestlé is present. The framework has also been used to evaluate the impact of some of its activities in several countries around the world, including the construction of its new Nespresso factory in Switzerland, and its milk district operations in Pakistan. The conceptual framework appears on Nestlé’s main global website, which communicates the contributions of Nestlé’s activities to consumers, suppliers, distributors, employees, governments and shareholders:
The international impact of this conceptual framework is also reflected in the fact that it served as an “important input” in the Seoul G20 Business Summit. On Tuesday 16 November 2010, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of Nestlé and Convenor of the Seoul G20 Business Summit Working Group “Encouraging FDI”, emphasized in his foreword:
“The study, written by Professor Peter Buckley (University of Leeds) and his team, was mandated in 2008 and finalised in 2009. It is meant to stimulate a more systematic debate on and analysis of the Creating Shared Value concept, and link it with state-of-the-art academic research on the impact of FDI. The study served as an important input towards the work of the Seoul G20 Working Group on “What strategies and measures should the G20 pursue to encourage foreign direct investment?” Similar to the paper drafted by Sauvant/Davies, we want to make it available to the wider public interested in the process of preparing for the Seoul G20 Business Summit.”
Public Policy – UNCTAD World Investment Report:
Two members of CIBUL regularly contribute expertise from our research on value creation in the global economy to the sphere of public policy. They help to shape the research agenda and activities of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, particularly with respect to the development of the World Investment Report (WIR). Professor Peter Buckley is Principal Consultant for the Report, and Professor Jeremy Clegg contributes input and advice (acknowledged annually in the Report). The theory of the optimal location of production stages by country and location (“The Global Factory”), which was developed by Professor Buckley, will be a key part of WIR 2011, and he played an important role in designing the report during a 6 week secondment in 2010. Professor Clegg was a visiting Fellow at UNCTAD in 2008/9 for seven months, developing an econometric model, with UNCTAD staff, on the determinants and policy drivers of global FDI flows, to be employed by UNCTAD and CIBUL for use in subsequent reports and in joint publications.
The impact of the WIR is considerable. It is the world’s most authoritative analysis of global international business and FDI trends and impacts. It is produced to inform government policy in the member states of the United Nations, and its findings are extensively employed by national and international policy units, statistical offices and government institutions. The Report is looked upon as an authority on how policy measures may enhance the contribution of FDI to development. It also is used as a reference work for countless commercial research and reports, and as a source for higher education research and teaching. In addition to the print version, the Report attracts a very large number of downloads per year, and its impact is considered to be significant.