18. Februar 2015. Did you ever ponder the value of the company you work for, the civil service you consult or the association you make donations to? Not in the financial sense. No. The question is: Are those organizations valuable for society at large? And hereby valuable for you?

In order to find an answer, the Center for Leadership and Values in Society (CLVS-HSG) has developed a unique approach of public value. What is new is the fact that management concepts such as shareholder value or customer value are placed in the more extensive context of society. According to this concept, an organisation acts meaningfully if it is appreciated in society and thus contributes to a working society.

Value creation, public value and me

In St.Gallen, two processes for the analysis of public value were developed under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Timo Meynhardt: the public value scorecard and the “GemeinwohlAtlas”. Both of them appraise organisations’ contribution to public value with reference to people’s four basic psychological needs: everyone wants to understand their environment and influence it in a target-oriented manner, find recognition, have positive experiences and cultivate good social relationships. It could also be said that public value is therefore individual welfare which can only be generated jointly.

The animation film shows how management decisions can be checked for their public value compatibility with the help of the public value approach. It explains the value creation conceptualisation of public value, which combines hard and soft factors. And it makes clear how an organisation’s contribution to public value can be measured.

Visual snacks of knowledge

The HSG’s “Little Green Bags” video series invites people to find out more about the areas of knowledge in which the University of St.Gallen specialises. The topics of digital life, energy turnaround, corporate responsibility, innovation and public value provide talking points in society, business and politics. They are therefore also important components of research and teaching at the HSG. Following on from the academic seminars accompanied by a snack, the so-called “brown bag lunches the “Little Green Bags” video series provides morsels of knowledge

The series was launched by the Institute for Business Ethics with the film about corporate social responsibility, “What is CSR?” The Institute of Technology Management illustrated the principle of effectuation and the ten myths of entrepreneurship. The fourth part explained how innovations occur. In the fifth video, “Digital Good Life”, Miriam Meckel showed how we can combine the digital and analogue worlds without any techno stress. The sixth film explained how real marketing guides customers towards a purchase. In the seventh video, Elgar Fleisch and Markus Weinberger showed what the internet of things is capable of.

“Little Green Bags” animation video series
The films are produced in cooperation with the Zurich animation studio Zense and film director Andri Hinnen, himself a graduate of the University of St.Gallen (SIM-HSG). The Academic Director of the animation film series is Prof. Dr. Thomas Beschorner, Director of the Institute for Business Ethics at the HSG.

Bild: Ausschnitt aus dem Animationsfilm / Zense