Building Social Innovation with Green SIM
Who is Laura Michelini?
Laura Michelini is a professor and researcher in the fields of management, business organization, and corporate social responsibility. At LUMSA University, she has coordinated the Master’s in Marketing and Events Organization since 2006, where she has also held positions as Assistant Professor in Business Organization and Research Fellow in Management. She has taught in international contexts, serving as Visiting Professor at ISCEM in Lisbon. She earned her doctorate in Communication Sciences and Complex Organizations at LUMSA with research dedicated to alliances between for-profit companies and NGOs for sustainable development. Throughout her academic career, she has taught management, marketing, corporate social responsibility, and customer relationship management at various Italian universities.
Dr. Michelini, thank you for engaging with our students and sharing your experience. What are your impressions at the end of these sessions?
It is an extremely positive impression. I found a very lively, very attentive classroom, and above all curious and constructive. In particular, I was struck in the group work by the ability first of all to engage, to grasp the essence of the work that was requested of them, but also a great openness within the groups and the ability to foster a shared process of building social innovation. A very beautiful experience.
Professor, in your work you demonstrate how sustainability and innovation must enter into the very structure of the enterprise: how urgent is it today to move beyond the idea that social impact is an “addition” and not an integral part of the business model?
I would say it is fundamental, especially for the success of enterprises themselves. Today, companies must begin to ask themselves “what can sustainability do for my business?”, that is, how can I best manage the lever of sustainability and social impact to improve the enterprise. A change in approach and perspective that helps the enterprise itself first and foremost. Therefore, I envision a world in which there is no innovation that is not social, where there is no separation between innovation and social innovation, between enterprise and sustainable enterprise, but where effectively every enterprise is social and every enterprise is sustainable. It will benefit everyone, the enterprise and the community.
In the approach of Fondazione Augurusa, the idea of Generative Restitution is fundamental, that is, the ability to produce widespread and lasting impact by generating shared value. Do you see a point of contact between this approach and the idea of economy that you study and teach?
I very much like the approach of “lasting,” because there is always a strong tendency in enterprises to look at short-term results, just as in impact measurement it is simpler to measure in the short term. In reality, the real challenge is to look at impact in the long term. The enterprise, in its nature as guarantor of business survival in the long term, must look at this, must look at the ability to generate value today while ensuring that present value does not negate future value.
The Green Social Impact Manager is a figure capable of operating among enterprise, public sector, and nonprofit. From your point of view, how close is this figure to the new professional profiles required by the economy?
I believe that the professional profiles required today are more complex than those of the past. I believe they must be figures capable first of all of thinking in a cross-cutting way, of being able to activate connections. Innovation models are increasingly complex, looking at multiple areas and multiple actors, so within an ecosystem the ability to bring together the various actors, the various proposals, the various ideas is certainly an important element today. Therefore, managers like Green Social Impact Managers, who are trained to look at and use different perspectives, become essential precisely for their ability to be activators of innovation.
Does it seem to you that between your path of study and research and the work that Fondazione Augurusa carries out in the territories there is a common space to build together? And what could be, in your opinion, the most interesting paths to pursue?
It is a good question because what I find in Fondazione Augurusa are liveliness and curiosity, so this openness is certainly generative of possible new activities, new ideas, on many fronts, starting precisely from the training of young people. Certainly among the most interesting paths to pursue together I would look precisely at the ability to create networks and bridges among the various actors in the system.
