Serving society as well as the bottom line

How do you define the SuperCorp of the future?

A company of any size that uses its clout for social good and uses the idea of serving society to enrich and inform its business strategy.

You write that vanguard companies will serve a social purpose as well as make money. Are those goals compatible?

The companies I write about in “SuperCorp’’ prove that they’re compatible. And the making money is certainly very important. IBM, Procter & Gamble are highly profitable or flourishing or growing during the recession, highly sustainable companies. It’s not as though at any one moment they are out trying to do good. But that idea of serving society is embedded in the way they think about innovation, the way they think about new markets. And therefore it’s connected to investments in the future that make money, just as research and development is.

Do you think businesses are in a better position than governments to respond to national disasters or solve society’s problems?

Not necessarily. But business can fill gaps, and business can be an innovator. So after [Hurricane] Katrina, Wal-Mart and IBM were excellent first responders - Wal-Mart with water, IBM with technology that could track vital statistics such as where are people in a disaster. When government is mobilized to do it well, then business is merely a partner. Business often innovates because that’s its job, bringing new technology and new products to the world. But it’s government that sets the public agenda and can take ideas to scale.

How do companies like IBM and Procter & Gamble build cultures that incorporate the common good into their business objectives?

Many of the companies I write about, including companies from other parts of the world that happen to also have operations in New England or the United States, started a while ago with strong cultures and strong values. But even IBM and Procter & Gamble wandered away from them a little bit. So in the 21st century, the CEOs simply choose to emphasize that. In IBM’s case, [chief executive] Sam Palmisano led a global conversation about what IBM’s values should be on the Web and engaged 140,000 employees in that discussion.

You write in your book that one IBM board member described that process as socialism. How did Palmisano respond to that?

He said no, this is the mode for this century. Social networking technology means that people are talking to each other anyway. And he said that IBM has sophisticated, educated employees in every part of the world. Why would they believe anything that was handed down from headquarters if they were not involved in the discussion?

So corporate culture is not only top-down at these companies?

Culture is also bottom-up, middle-up, horizontal. And self-organizing networks are actually a very important source of innovation and change in the vanguard companies, in the SuperCorps. . . . Because it is people in any community or in any part of the world with their ear to the ground - sensing trends, going home at night, talking to their families, getting involved in their communities - who understand what is starting to become popular and what the needs are. And when they begin to talk with each other around the world, they spread new ideas very quickly, faster than anybody at headquarters could ever learn about them.

You write about two Boston area businesses, Gillette and Digitas, that were acquired by vanguard companies Publicus Groupe and Procter & Gamble. Do these new larger networks mean they’ll be making a greater contribution to Boston as well as the world?

Yes. Because if people live in a particular place, they care about the quality of life in the place where they live. While we can all become motivated by helping starving orphans in Africa, they’re far away. . . . Digitas is a relatively young company. I was just at their Boston headquarters a little while ago. And the people there were talking about how to get more involved as the parent company, which is headquartered in France, begins to see that a sense of purpose can unite their people all over the world.

Companies like Banco Real in Brazil have embraced “values-based’’ guidance systems. In what way has that furthered their corporate strategies?

By looking outward at the needs of society, as opposed to things that are already established markets, they were able to innovate new lending products, to help people make their cars and homes more environmentally friendly.