In recent years the issues facing Japanese society, the Japanese government and the private sector have expanded to a variety of contexts, and the external environment is changing at a rapid pace. In this day and age, accurately and swiftly performing the work we are asked to do is not enough to change society on its own. It is therefore those organisations and companies that seek opportunities, daringly take on challenges and obtain the necessary management resources that will be the ones to change society. To solve the social issues surrounding us and the companies where we work, we must move ahead while diving into spheres, fields and industries with which we have no previous connection, and gain the involvement of people we have yet to encounter.
At PwC Consulting LLC, a group of people from various divisions and of various job grades who shared the desire to create a better society came together across those boundaries in 2019 to establish the Social Impact Initiative, a new initiative that embodies the PwC Purpose, ‘to build trust in society and solve important problems’. Those of us involved in the Social Impact Initiative aim to create a society in which we create collective impact, and believe that through the process of promoting various initiatives we can cultivate social capital in the form of interpersonal relationships, and use this as a means to change our society.
Society continuously maintains a state of equilibrium, but when internal or external forces unbalance this equilibrium, conventional organisations and mechanisms can become unable to sufficiently respond. Even in today’s uncertain society, however, there are people who imagine a brighter future and hope to pursue initiatives towards that future. But it is difficult for any one person to develop a grand vision on their own, and more difficult still to realise it. Nevertheless, if we pursue such initiatives in tandem with like-minded colleagues it is possible to hold on to our big dreams. And this is exactly why we believe that, to change society, the most important factor of all is the building up of social capital. In this report, we aim to set out the lessons we have learned through the initiatives pursued as part of the Social Impact Initiative, in a manner that anyone can use. We hope that this report will be of help to those of you who wish to launch initiatives within your own companies or organisations, and those of you who have problems to solve but are unsure of how you should take them on. We also hope that it will lead to our readers building social capital within your own companies or together with our Social Impact Initiative, and to the creation of collective impact.
This report is composed of seven chapters.
In Chapter 1 we consider the difficulty of achieving a grand vision on one’s own, and the importance of approaching such a vision with like-minded colleagues. Such an initiative will need to be launched by a small number of people who take ‘ownership’ of it, and Chapter 2 explains the necessary factors for doing so. In Chapter 3, we then focus on the sort of leadership and support that are needed to help such initiatives overcome the troubles they face after launch.
Chapter 4 considers methods for creating the ‘community’ that serves as the dynamic force in promoting initiatives. Initiatives that are created with a community at their core develop into network organisations, and increase their influence as organisations. This process is described in Chapter 5.
In Chapter 6, we explain the rationale for how it is possible for networks to become the source of social change in the form of social capital. Finally, in Chapter 7, we put forward some suggestions on how to use social capital to change society. At the end of the report, we provide some examples from our Social Impact Initiative to aid your understanding.
Foreword
Examples from the Social Impact Initiative
Afterword
A network connected by many interpersonal ties
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