Process, purpose and profit: organising the creation of shared value in an emerging economy

Van Rheede, Nicole

Process, purpose and profit: organising the creation of shared value in an emerging economy

Thesis / Dissertation

2025

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Graduate School of Business (GSB)

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

This thesis examines the organizing principles of shared value creation, as a process pertaining to how firms adopt, define and practice mutually beneficial value creation. As evidenced in the literature, formal firms typically begin a process of creating shared value as a strategic input. While insights from this research evidence how informal firms create shared value as an unintended outcome, and cross-sectoral partnerships evidence a continuous dialogical process of creating and recreating shared value. Since its conceptualisation in 2011 by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, shared value creation has gained popularity in academic and practitioner communities alike. Research to date, has either primarily contributed to its conceptual definition and critique, or empirically aligning it within existing corporate sustainability frameworks. As a result, various tensions have emerged that tend to exacerbate dichotomies between economic and social value, and business and society. What remained to be contested are the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of creating shared value. To overcome these tensions and address this gap, I embark on a journey of critical scholarship that reveals how the conceptual intent of shared value creation is misaligned with its practice. I argue that the basis of this misalignment is ontologically and epistemologically derived, and is therefore, the source of the dichotomous tensions that have emerged in previous studies. I propose a new onto-epistemological visioning which reimagines creating shared value as an emergent, recurrent process. This reimagined stance is then applied empirically to two case studies to test this conceptual realignment in practice. This practical application contributes to the specific academic conversation of shared value creation, but more broadly contributes to process organisation studies and its affinity towards critical organisational scholarship. Upon reflection of these processual, critical ideals, emerges the key contribution of this thesis - that we as producers of knowledge are ethically implicated in having created this misalignment. As constructors of academic discourse, we are bestowed with ethical accountability for the narratives and boundaries our contributions solidify or dissolve. I conclude with a call to action for all organisational scholars to critically diffract on the consequences of our contributions, as we begin to reposition ourselves from knowledge producers to engaged knowledge creators.