Going beyond Financial and Customer Value: Defining and Measuring Strategic Social Value Orientation
(A2021-94254)

AUTHORS

Marcelo de la Cruz Jara, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Jelena Spanjol, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich

ABSTRACT

With the value concept now going beyond financial and customer value towards social value, the need for strategic orientations accounting for this expanded view on value is increasing. We conduct a review comprising 135 articles drawn from leading peer-reviewed journals across business disciplines and propose a multidimensional conceptualization of Strategic Social Value Orientation (SSVO) that consists of two behavioral components (stakeholder orientation; purpose driven) and two decision criteria (focus on consequences; mutuality). Finally, we develop and validate a linguistic, content-analytic approach for examining SSVO that aims at facilitating future empirical studies across business disciplines. We believe that SSVO is a meaningful instrument to guide the integration of social value creation into for-profit firm’s mainstream business and thus secure the long term success of a firm.