Ashoka
It’s becoming clear that this moment in history—our moment in history—is one in which we put our faith in disruptive “hacks,” those game-changing innovators that redefine business as usual. Blindly following the patterns and business practices of the past won’t cut it. We see the signs of breakdowns (and the need for new ways of thinking) everywhere we look, from bursting bubbles in the tech and housing industries in the 2000s to civilian “occupiers” challenging the 1 Percent to see the bigger picture. While these dislocations feel chaotic and unnerving, they are symptoms of the shortcomings of old business archetypes, and they beg for a new framework for the future.
Enter Ashoka Full Economic Citizenship (FEC)’s Hybrid Value Chain (HVC), an inclusive framework that breaks down the walls between private business and public citizen sectors. Hybrid Value Chains have been proven to forge alliances between traditionally divergent sectors to ignite unprecedented levels of innovation–the type of disruptive innovation necessary for sustained business growth and social value in the 21st century.
HVC shows that once you tear down the walls between the public and private sectors, you can begin to ask the right question, and are then able to pool the deep (albeit unique) knowledge between the citizens and corporations to co-invent the future.
And that’s where you come in.
Through the Long-Term Capitalism Challenge—the MIX: Management Innovation eXhange—along with it's partnrs Harvard Business Review and McKinsey & Company ask for the disruptive solutions that will improve management practise for the 21st century. They're scouring the globe for real-world case studies and boldly origial ideas that offer the alternatives to the status quo and challenge organizations to be principled, patient, and socially oriented.
Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenships’s entry in the HBR/McKinsey M-Prize Challenge is part our strategy to share the results of our work in developing and applying HVC widely. Our goal is to inspire managers (and those who help them) to think outside the box, in turn transforming organizations from the rigid actors of the past into the innovative leaders of tomorrow.
The judges and MIX editorial team are selecting the top solutions based on depth, boldness, originality, thoroughness, and the ability to inspire and instruct in equal measure. Ashoka's HVC is amongst the 24 ideas that were selected as finalists from the 148 submitted. Other ideas in the top 24 include those from Acumen Fund, B Lab and the Grameen Foundation to name a few.
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