By Alexander Schieffer for FORUM CSR international

The TRANS4M Four World Center for Social Innovation, Geneva, has established itself as a new force for “rethinking enterprise”. The research, education and consultancy based organisation describes itself as a Laboratory for Social Innovation and Managing Transformation and has developed one of the most innovative and globally tested approaches to enable enterprises to become truly sustainable while simultaneously contributing to their respective societies. In close partnership with the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) founded by the Prince of Wales, TRANS4M is focused on designing and enabling a way forward to make business a powerful force for the sustainable development of society.

The Challenge: Fundamentally Rethinking “Enterprise in Society”

TRANS4M argues, that the time has come to fundamentally rethink the way in which organisations are run, and reimagine how organisations engage their societies. Why? The world’s economic landscape has changed dramatically! Climate change and environmental challenges require a new understanding of nature and its impact on business and other organisations. Food security and health issues, corruption, governance requirements, diversity & culture, globalization pressures, poverty alleviation and conflict resolution are just a few of the increasingly complex issues organisations and societies are facing worldwide.

Responding to the Challenge: A New View on Enterprise and Society

All too often organisations and societies are tackling these challenges from different ideological and cultural perspectives. According to TRANS4M, fundamentally revised forms and functions for Business in Society are needed, including a new cross-sectoral and cross-cultural orientation.

Based on intensive engagement with individuals, organisations and societies, in the UK and America, Eastern and Western Europe, China and India, the Middle East and Africa, TRANS4M argues that the Social Innovation we are collectively seeking lies exactly in the creative interaction between the parts of a whole. TRANS4M focuses on the “creative activation” of such diversity (between organisational dimensions, societal sectors and cultures) while working towards more integrated perspectives.

Making it happen: Engaging in Innovative Transformational Processes

TRANS4M has developed transformational processes that enable organisations to gradually evolve more integrated public-private-civic-environmental forms, ultimately increasing their own and their societies’ sustainability and resilience.

The Institute stands on solid grounds. TRANS4M, founded as a social enterprise by Prof. Ronnie Lessem and Dr. Alexander Schieffer, originally started out by enabling Social Innovation through masters and doctoral programmes with a clear focus on transformation. The design and execution of such research and educational programmes, which are accredited by renowned universities in the UK and the US, is still an important part of TRANS4M’s work.

All processes, whether designed for academia or directly for enterprises, are rooted in a unique approach to cross-catalysation between different cultures, sectors, organisations and disciplines. TRANS4M’s programmes are built on the knowledge and experiences of the most advanced organisations from all sectors of society and from the four corners of the world.

Moving Forward: Expanding the Laboratory for Social Innovation

In partnership with IBLF, TRANS4M now has evolved further into a truly transcultural and cross-sectoral Laboratory for Social Innovation, committed to becoming a space for educational institutions as well as organisations from all sectors and cultures to jointly engage in the exploration of more sustainable forms of enterprise and society.

A core team of researchers and developers is being built up to form the nucleus of the Social Innovation Laboratory. Together they embody a transcultural, cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary orientation. The Laboratory engages with educational institutions as well as enterprises from all four sectors that are interested in redesigning educational as well as organisational development processes.

Co-Creation and Innovation: The Impact of the Laboratory

We finally demonstrate the impact of the Four World Laboratory with a number of examples:

Entrepreneurial Impact – Exploring the Future of “Enterprise”: The Laboratory is involved in a number of co-engagements with enterprises, such as Virgin Money, and Anglian Water in the UK, and CIDA University in South Africa to co-create new forms of social and economic enterprise from a particular cultural perspective.

Societal Impact – Cross-Sector Partnership to address Food Security in Zimbabwe: Building upon a project based Masters Programme designed by TRANS4M and run in Southern Africa, the son of a local chief and himself a business consultant from Zimbabwe, together with Zimbabwe’s leading food processing company, has developed a learning center and a sustainable approach to food security, enabling villages comprised of over 5.000 people to move from starvation to sustainable food management.

Inter-Organisational Impact – Transforming CSR into Corporate Social Innovation: Detecon International, Germany, a leading international consultancy in the ICT arena, has, in association with TRANS4M, set up a Corporate Responsibility Group, extending its consulting portfolio towards Social Innovation.

Organisational Impact – Towards Sustainable Business in the Middle East: The Middle East Complex (MEC), Jordan, one of the largest industrial companies in the Middle East has set out to become an authentically sustainable company, with the support not only of TRANS4M, but of a community of closely aligned public, civic and environmental enterprises.

Individual Impact – Promoting Social and Economic Innovation through Education: In partnership with the renowned US-based Bethel University, TRANS4M is designing and executing a doctoral programme on Social and Economic Innovation in the US.

TRANS4M Four World Center for Social Innovation
Geneva – Switzerland
Web: www.trans-4-m.com
Tel. ++41 22 3449320
Fax ++41 22 3449321

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