BUSINESS FOR GOOD: THE POWER TO CREATE CHANGE

This book defines Business for Good as the strategic integration of social value into an enterprise's core competencies to realize commercial value through social progress. Unlike traditional charity's zero-sum redistribution of existing wealth, Business for Good moves beyond this mindset to advocate for profiting through altruism—enlarging the pie while distributing it more fairly.

What happens when businesses stop treating social responsibility as an afterthought and instead make it central to their strategy? Can companies genuinely profit by doing good—not through charity or marketing stunts, but by solving real problems for real people? This book attempts to answer the above questions and more.

Through the Business for Good Triangle Theory—encompassing co-benefit philosophy, institutional safeguards, and strategic integration—we offer tools that work across industries and company sizes. The Business for Good Action Map provides 35 actionable entry points spanning environmental, social, and governance dimensions, making sustainable practices accessible to everyone from startups to multinationals. These frameworks emerged from a decade of teaching and research at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, refined through thousands of student projects.

Drawing on insights from behavioral psychology, this book features real-world cases from China and beyond: Patagonia's radical ownership restructure, Haidilao's employee empowerment model, accessible cable cars, and invisible office gyms. These examples demonstrate how small, well-designed interventions can trigger snowball effects of positive change, showing both successes and setbacks along the way.

This book is for founders, executives, students, and anyone who believes commerce can be a force for progress. Business for Good isn't about choosing between profit and purpose—it's about recognizing they're fundamentally connected and building systems that make doing good the natural path to sustainable success.

Rui (Juliet) Zhu is Professor of Marketing and Director of the ESG and Social Innovation Center at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB). Prior to joining CKGSB, Juliet was Associate Professor of Marketing and Canada Research Chair in Consumer Behavior at the University of British Columbia (BC, Canada), as well as Assistant Professor of Marketing at Rice University (USA). She received her PhD in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota, USA.

Prof. Zhu's research interests center on behavioral science, business for good, and social innovation. Her research has been published in top journals such as Science, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Marketing Research. She was an associate editor for the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Research between 2018 and 2022. She published the book Enterprises of the Future: A Three-Step Approach for Sustainable Business in 2020, and another book, The Logic of Decision, in 2022.

Xin Li is a researcher at the ESG and Social Innovation Center, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB). Prior to joining CKGSB, Xin was a researcher and program officer at China Global Philanthropy Institute (CGPI), the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization (INBAR), and The Mountain Institute (TMI). She received her Master's degree in Management from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Xin has extensive experience in designing and implementing nonprofit projects. She works closely with Professor Zhu on topics related to business for good and social innovation.