Cambridge Business Association
A Better World, Inc.
Book

A Better World, Inc.

How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems...Where Governments Cannot

Alice Korngold
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
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Editorial Rating

8

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  • Innovative

Recommendation

The biblical four horsemen of the apocalypse – famine, death, war and pestilence – ride today, and other apocalyptic global problems gallop with them: human rights abuses, resource destruction, refugee crises, climate change, inadequate health care and inferior education. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultant Alice Korngold discusses these daunting global troubles and concludes that multinational corporations – not governments or international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) – can best address these staggering challenges. Korngold is a passionate yet practical idealist who has worked since the 1990s to help place top executives on the boards of NGOs. Whether companies do good for the sake of humanity or for sound public relations – or both – they are still doing good, nonetheless, and on a scale no other parties can match. Korngold provides essential reading for corporate executives – particularly at multinationals – as well as for CSR professionals, NGOs, students, investors and those interested in practical solutions to the world’s problems. getAbstract recommends her valuable report on how global firms tackle today’s woes, and how others can most effectively join them.

Summary

A World of Problems

The world faces numerous seemingly intractable economic, social or environmental problems. Poverty makes lives miserable for more than one billion people. The divide between rich and poor grows greater daily. Global warming and environmental degradation continue unchecked. Fragile ecosystems suffer unrelenting attacks from business and population expansion. Millions of people have no health care, and far too many – young and old – die of preventable diseases. Millions more lack basic human rights. Educational systems worldwide, including in the most advanced nations, fail to provide young people with the tools they need. Students are not receiving the “science, technology, engineering and math” (STEM) knowledge and training that will make them future desired employees. The human costs of these challenges are disastrous.

Governments Are Not the Answer

National borders confine governments and prevent them from solving global problems that transcend political boundaries. Governments lack the authority and the necessary resources to fix crippling worldwide issues. Sometimes, individual countries attempt to enlist other nations to collaborate...

About the Author

Alice Korngold, author of Leveraging Good Will: Strengthening Nonprofits by Engaging Businesses, is president and CEO of Korngold Consulting LLC. She advises international corporations on how to exercise corporate social responsibility and how to work with nonprofits.

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