Public Value & Leadership
How do organizations contribute to the common good, and how can leaders foster a public value orientation throughout their organization?
Our foundational research area examines the relationship between organizational activities and societal wellbeing. Building on over two decades of empirical and conceptual development at the University of St. Gallen and HHL Leipzig, we investigate how citizens perceive and evaluate organizational contributions across the four dimensions of public value — moral-ethical, instrumental-utilitarian, political-social, and hedonistic-aesthetic.
Central questions include: Which organizations are perceived as genuinely beneficial to society, and why? What distinguishes organizations that create lasting legitimacy from those that face a growing trust deficit? How do leadership practices, culture, and strategy shape public value orientation? And how can the relationship between leadership and societal value creation be understood in the context of the grand challenges of our time?
This research area generates both foundational theory and practical tools. The GemeinwohlAtlas studies (Switzerland, Germany) provide large-scale empirical evidence on public value perceptions across populations. The Public Value Scorecard translates the four-dimensional framework into a strategic management instrument used by organizations across sectors. The Leipzig Leadership Model connects public value creation with leadership practice by integrating purpose orientation, entrepreneurial spirit, responsibility, and effectiveness into a holistic framework for navigating the tensions between organizational success and societal benefit.
Key outputs include over 50,000 survey participants across three geographies, 30+ peer-reviewed publications in journals including the Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, and Public Management Review, and applied partnerships with organizations including Fresenius Medical Care and the German Federal Employment Agency.
Social Innovation & Cross-Sector Collaboration
How do new solutions emerge that simultaneously meet social needs and create new forms of collaboration — and how can they be designed, facilitated, and scaled?
Social innovation research at CLIS-HSG examines the processes through which novel responses to societal challenges are developed, tested, and diffused. We are particularly interested in the conditions that enable innovation to transition from pilot to systemic change, and in the role that cross-sector collaboration plays as both a driver and a governance challenge in these processes.
Our work spans several interconnected streams: the dynamics of mission-based ecosystems and how organizations with different cultures, incentive structures, and operating logics can work together effectively toward shared goals; the design and facilitation of co-creation processes across sector boundaries; digital social innovation and the role of technology in enabling new forms of participation and collective action; and corporate social innovation as a strategic pathway for organizations to address societal challenges through their core business.
Central questions include: How do mission-based ecosystems form, develop, and evolve over time? What governance mechanisms enable effective collaboration across sector boundaries? How do intermediary organizations facilitate ecosystem development, and what capabilities do they need? How can digital platforms enable meaningful participation in governance processes? And how do cross-sector partnerships in development cooperation translate into lasting social, economic, and environmental impact?
Sustainability Transformation
How can organizations transition from merely addressing sustainability to making it a genuine source of strategic renewal and organizational identity?
Sustainability transformation research investigates the organizational changes required to integrate sustainability into strategy, culture, operations, and stakeholder relationships. We are interested in both what needs to change — business models, governance structures, leadership practices — and how those changes are led and managed. A key focus is the tension between short-term performance pressures and long-term sustainability imperatives, and how leaders navigate this tension without losing organizational coherence.
This research area is closely linked to both our public value work (sustainability as a dimension of organizational contribution to the common good) and our social innovation research (transformation as a process requiring new forms of collaboration and institutional innovation).