SPEAKER_00 0:12

You're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast with Roger Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rodery Davis, and this week is the third of our partnership series with the European Research Network on Philanthropy, or ERNOP, where I talk to academics whose work has been featured in the most recent of Earnop's research notes series. Now, this research notes series, as previous listeners will know, the aim of it is to get practitioners to write summaries of recent or um kind of academic work from over the last few years in the field of philanthropy, um, in a bid to try and make it more accessible to a wider audience. Um as part of that I'm also partnering with Earn OP to try and do that also in audio form. Um so we've got three great guests again for you this time round. Um so we've got Marlou Ramakers, uh, who's a research associate in the Faculty of Social Sciences at RIO University in Amsterdam. Um we've got Nina Souter, uh, who's a PhD student and a teaching assistant uh at the Finance Research Institute at the University of Geneva, and also works uh there in the sort of behavioral philanthropy lab as well. Uh and we've got Livia Ventura, uh, who's the Prince of Wales Global Sustainability Fellow in Business Transformation and New Corporate Forms, which is a mouthful, um, at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Um so I'll introduce each of them um a little bit as we go through the segments and just tell you a bit about what the actual work that they're talking about uh is, um, although that should become pretty apparent um as we go through the conversations. Uh so without further ado, let's get into it. Um first up is Marlou Ramakers. Uh and Marlou is talking about a really interesting paper um that she wrote a couple of years ago um all about informal volunteering and socialization effects and looking at the role that both parents and partners play in influencing uh informal volunteering. Uh so let's hear from Marlou. Okay, great. So I'm here with Marlou Ramakers. Hello, hi Marlou.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Great to have a chance to talk to you on the on the podcast um about the work that you've got featured in the most uh recent Earn Op Research Note series. Um and it's a paper um all about the relationship between informal volunteering and socialization um effects. So um it's really interesting, and maybe the best place to start is just for you to tell us a bit about what the research was all about, how it came about, and what the key findings were.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Right, thank you. Um yeah, so um the paper is part of uh my PhD dissertation. Um, and we started sort of um the idea was that we saw in a lot of uh research on volunteering that volunteering for an organization that family is very important in that, and what if family members also engage in volunteering behavior. And we have focused specifically on um informal volunteering, so that's volunteering not for an organization, but more in informally directly to a person. Um and we thought, hey, maybe these socialization effects are also present for uh informal volunteering. Um, so that's what what the starting point was, and then we looked at various forms of socialization. So, in um theory about this, we generally distinguish between three forms of socialization practices, so to say. We did not focus on reinforcements for a whole lot of reasons, but specifically focused on um uh modeling and on encouragement, and we focused on two important figures during a person's life. So for childhood, we focused on parents because they're seen as sort of the the first the primary socialization agents, and then for the um for adulthood, we focus on romantic partners, so that's uh spouses, but also people you are in relationship with that live with you. Um and we wanted to see whether these practices um influenced people's informal volunteering behavior and who whether it mattered who did them. Um and in the end, we found uh that um modeling was important uh irrespective of whether the irrespective of whether the um parents or the partner did it. Um and for uh encouragement we only found effects for the partner. Um and we are not completely sure why we did not find any parental effects, and we haven't, but this is speculation. Obviously, we have a sense that that might be because a lot of parents do this encourage pro-social behavior to some extent. I don't think there will be any parents who will be like, oh, it's you should never help other people. That's a bad thing to do. Um, and I so it might be our measurement that was not optimal for measuring this the the the differences, because I can imagine there can be parents who are like, yeah, this is a good thing, and then their parents who really emphasize this during, you know, when growing up. So um yeah, so we might find something if we were if we looked into this deeper. Uh but yeah, that's the paper in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yeah. And so to clarify, I guess for people listening, the difference there, which maybe a lot of parents will feel does reflect their experience, is is that it's effective to show children what to do by modeling the behavior, but actually when you tell them, it turns out it seems as though that's a less effective way of getting them.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

That's what we found. So so if people, you know, engage in and we look used um volunteering for an organization as sort of modeling, helping behavior and for pro-social behavior to a child um as a way of modeling. So if parents did that, their children in in adulthood, so that's actually quite a long time between them doing it and their children acting more pro more helpfully, so to say, um, that children would engage more in informal volunteering.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, and and you were saying there about, you know, uh the possible, you know, that the explanations for that might be that there is this sort of genuine phenomenon or it might tell you something about the the nature of the data. What just so people kind of know, what was the the data on which you were basing the re the research? And particularly I guess I'm thinking was the evidence about the effect of parental um encouragement or modeling, is that based on the individual's recollection about it later on?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yes. So what we did is we used survey data from the Netherlands and we asked people to um um report whether their parents volunteered when they were around 15 years old. There is a, although pro social development takes much longer and starts at a very young age, there's also some research that indicates that this is sort of a prime formalization, formative period uh in the in a child's life. Um, and then we asked them, so we ask adults to report on what their parents did um regarding to volunteering for an organization, but also uh whether they would say that their parents always encourage them to help others and always stressed that it was important to help others. So um, yeah, that's how we we we approach it. There might be, you know, um these types of research is always complicated because there could be a uh a slight bias in that, but obviously it's it's very expensive and also very difficult to find sort of interview parents when they when the child is 15 years old and then see them like 15 years or 20 years or 25 years later and say, hey, how are you doing now? So uh less optimal, but still relatively effective. Uh, I would say uh we chose for sort of a retrospective question.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah. And I guess it's always a challenge with anything where you're asked, you're trying to determine motivations about giving, in that there's an element of self-reporting or people's, you know, people aren't necessarily good at knowing exactly what it is that drives their own generosity. So um you know, it's really interesting. I wanted to ask actually when I was reading the paper, maybe a sort of slightly more speculative question about how this applies in a wider context. Um, do you do you have any sense that there might be a danger that some of the ways that we're now choosing to engage in social action, so giving online or doing forms of volunteering that aren't necessarily as visible might lead to a reduction in the effects of modeling? Because even if parents are doing it, their children can't see that they're doing it in the same way.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Right. No, no. Um, obviously, I cannot, you know, against speculation, but I can totally imagine that. I think that's one of the key parts of modeling, is that a child sees that a parent does it. So, in that sense, volunteering for an organization, for example, a sports association or a local community center where the child is also present is way more effective than if a parent um volunteers online in the evening when the child has already gone to bed. Um, so in that sense, yeah, I can imagine that that could be part of it. Um, and that might also could also apply for other ways of giving and then more on the the donations, the monetary donation side. I can also imagine that, but obviously that was not what the specific paper was about.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

But yeah, yeah, I can see that that could be yeah, and definitely maybe a you know interesting area for for future research for for someone as well. Um, I just just wanted to ask actually, because obviously the purpose of the the research note series that Ernop's um doing is to try and get better connections between academic work on on philanthropy and kind of practice and policymaking. So, I mean, I mean, first of all, in terms of your your own paper, what what do you think are the kind of useful things that practitioners or policymakers can can take from the findings, even if they're not definitive, just as to kind of guide their thinking?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Um, yeah, I would say there's maybe two things. I want to preface this with saying that the issue for um practitioners with informal volunteering is that obviously it's not organized. So if you have a voluntary organization, it's very you cannot really dip your toe into this because it's by definition not organized. Um, that being said, I think there's two takeaways that can be useful for practitioners. Um, so at least for the informal volunteering, we found indications that people are not set in stone after childhood. So there is a whole lot of research about pro-social development during childhood, and that sort of gives an indication that a person is sort of done after when they reach adulthood. But at least her findings for partners and partner socialization indicate, although you know, indicate that there that there might be uh options for people to influence others to uh be more prosocial, uh engage more in volunteering behavior uh or other philanthropic philanthropic behavior could could also possibly uh be on that uh receiving end. And I think the other thing is that we found obviously that when a partner or parents volunteer for an organization, that this spills over sort of to their partner or children in terms of informal volunteering. So I guess this emphasizes the importance of having engaging people in volunteering and having them also to some extent at least make that visible and involve their loved ones into that, because that seemingly spills over now not possibly only into these other people also engaging in volunteering for an organization, but also into informal volunteering. So um I think that also maybe it's useful for practitioners to know how important it is to make it visible and to, you know, to engage people.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like really useful insights. And I guess just sort of taking that point more more broadly, um, you know, it feels as though those are useful things that practitioners can take from your work. What's your experience so far of the links between academia and practice in philanthropy? Do you think that it's easy to get academic insights to practitioners, or do you think there are challenges in in doing that and what might those be?

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Um for me personally, I so I feel like the philanthropy field is generally relatively well connected between uh like organizations in practice and academics. Um, I when I go to conferences, I meet quite a lot of the of practitioners. Um, and I get the feeling if I read the research that there's also quite well, uh there's a good connection between research and and practice. But for me, personally, I have always focused on the informal side and I've always struggled. But that's also from my own side, I have to admit that, um, that I don't really know. So it's sometimes difficult to to reach out to practitioners then, because I want to give them something that they can use. And sometimes my my my results are most like, okay, so informal volunteering doesn't do this very well. So maybe you should pick up the Slack here. Um, and that's not really a I I find it a difficult message to communicate, but I would also say that's also on my end, I have found that people, when I meet them and I tell talk about my research, they've are very interested. So I think uh yeah, that has been my experience, but I definitely see a lot of avenues where there is uh a connection being made between academia and practice and including this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Well, that's yeah, it's great to hear. And I it feels as though there's a lot more interest in informal modes of social action and how they relate to formal modes at the moment, I guess, because you know everybody's aware of kind of groundswells of mutual aid and informal volunteering. So there's even if they don't quite know what to do about it, they are interested in it.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah. Um, and I just just wanted to ask before I let you go, it's been really great having a chance to talk. Um, obviously, I know that often people have worked on these papers, you know, a reasonable um time ago in the past. So you're obviously probably doing other things now. What is it that you're working on at the moment? Is it a follow-up to this research or have you kind of looking at other areas?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Um, both. Um, I am currently not working at the Rapport University anymore, but at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. So I now work at the Giving in the Netherlands project, which we sort of um describe the entire sector in the Netherlands every two years. Um, and I'm mostly doing the quantitative data part for that, uh, but also working on giving on volunteering um by households. Um, but I have to say that I'm also working on a sort of follow-up on this paper because one of the things that we also acknowledge in the um results of the discussion section is that um we cannot really disentangle whether pro-social people are more likely to form a relationship or whether people influence each other. And a follow-up paper that I'm working on now is sort of to disentangle that a bit more, where we can say more strongly, like, oh, okay, so it's a um if one partner engages in informal volunteering, then the other partner after that also becomes more likely to engage in that. And prelim preliminary results indeed show that that's the case. So that's great. Uh, but I have to finish do some finishing batches on that research.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

So oh, that sounds really interesting. I would definitely um you know be interested to hear more about that when the research is out. Um yeah, listen, but it remains just to say thanks ever so much for finding the time to come on the podcast. It's been great to hear about the research and what you're working on now, and and certainly all the best with it in the future.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yes, thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Great. Well, following on from that really interesting conversation with Marlou, we're next up we have Nina Souter uh talking about um another fascinating paper in this series uh all about virtual reality and kind of exploring the potential of virtual reality as a tool for fundraising, something that I'm personally really fascinated by. So without further ado, let's hear from Nina. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Nina Souter. Hi there, Nina.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And Nina is currently doing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Geneva and has done some work with their behavioral philanthropy lab. Um and the paper that we're going to talk about today, I think, has come about as part of that. Um, and it's a really interesting paper about the use of virtual reality for fundraising and some of the sort of potential in that. Um so maybe the best place to start, if you could just tell us a bit about how the paper came about, what the kind of main aim of it is, and what some of the key findings were.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah, so the idea for the paper actually came about through our interaction with the International Red Cross Committee or the ICRC. So they had uh these um VR modules that they were using to train their um internal agents, and they were wondering whether it would be a good idea to adapt them to use for fundraising. And so they asked if it if we'd be willing to collaborate with them on this. So that's where the idea came from, and then uh we worked together with them closely pretty much throughout the study.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah, and and what was um in terms of adapting it, what what was the um the training module kind of adapted to do? And what were the sort of hypotheses that you were testing uh through this?

SPEAKER_02 19:03

So the training module was basically to train agents to be in uh war zones. So the module is set in an urban combat zone, and um you have to rescue an unconscious child. So our idea for adaptation was to uh make it a bit more interactive, make the person interact a bit more with the child. And then what we had them do was uh be on the phone with an ICRC agent who was helping them navigate this uh urban conflict zone to try and get the child to safety at the end. And then we tried to um modify certain things that we were trying to test as well. So we worked with our VR team to do that.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

And and what were the kind of things that you were testing and what did you do you find? I'm assuming it's about the kind of the utility of VR, and is it about how that compares to traditional fundraising or about different types of VR experiences? Because I know there was mention in the paper of two different sort of A-B versions, one that had a positive outcome and one that had a negative. So it'd be really interesting to hear what the differences were there, if any.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, exactly. So I'll give you first the general premise a bit more. So we're interested in how um to attract primarily younger donors because there's this, you know, famous wealth transfer between generations that is happening. And millennials have a bit of a different relationship to um engaging with philanthropy. Like we like to connect to causes, we don't just like to give our money and and not know what's going to happen to it. So we like to see the impact, we like to know a bit more about what the organization is doing and and kind of accompany it. And another thing about us is we like to get our information through technology, and we're very um into doing research and using um more modern medium. And a lot of the ICRC uh in general, a lot of philanthropic initiatives require more dated um medium. So they'll send letters or they'll have people approach you in the street, but there's not really anything that helps to connect the donor to the donees per se. And so we thought that VR could be a good way to do this because we can't take people and put them in war-torn zones, but we can give them a taste of what it might be like. And so the idea was to take this module that they already had and to use it with uh primarily young people and to see if this would help them to connect a bit more with the cause and to realize a bit more what the IC ICRC is trying to do and if this would result in more donations. So, yes, we wanted to look at different things. So previous studies, there are a few studies that already looked on uh VR and donations in the past and uh they they found that sometimes the the kind of scenario affected the donation. So they found uh there was this one study that looked at the effects of the environment. Um, and they looked at negative versus positive scenarios. And so we wanted to see whether having a negative ending versus a positive ending might um make people more likely to donate. We also played with interactive. A little bit. So we had some scenarios which were more interactive. People could pick up, for example, a white flag to wave around when there was a tank passing by to show that they were innocent, where they could decide a bit more where to move in the scenario and how to how to proceed. Whereas there was a passive version as well, where they kind of just were taken through the scenario without having to do it. So we wanted to see if this interactivity could help with the immersion and with the engagement really with the avatars and the characters that were in the scenario. So what we did is we compared this scenario in VR to the same scenario with the same level of interactivity and the same endings on a computer screen. So with a on the computer scene, basically they moved around using the mouse and they could still have a 360 view if they wanted to, but uh it was less immersive. And so we wanted to see whether it was the story itself or the technology which was driving our effect.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

And um what was the what were the kind of findings around that? Because I think that's a really fascinating question about whether it is just the medium that is different and maybe more engaging because it's technologically driven, or whether there is something actually in the affordance of the technology that develops more empathy or more connection, or whether actually if you just tell a good story in whatever medium, that's an effective method of fundraising.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Yeah, so we had some very interesting findings actually. We found, we only found a significant effect for VR itself, so the medium. However, um, when we looked at what might be driving this, so we had physiological recordings throughout the study to see basically how excited people were getting, how physiologically aroused they were during the study. And we found that people in the VR scenarios had a much higher physiological level of arousal. However, that wasn't what was driving their donations. So what we saw was that, like you said, it was the aspects that were more related to good storytelling. So we said we saw that people in the VR scenario they reported um much stronger feelings of being moved, and they also reported more sadness, which due to the nature of the scenario is to be expected. And these uh feelings were actually linked to higher donations. So it seems like they were they were more touched by the story in the VR scenario, and that was correlated with donating more. Another thing that was interesting was we we asked them about their general perspective on the experience. So if they thought it was interesting, if they thought it was um exciting or enriching. And we people in the VR scenario seemed to appreciate the experience a lot more. And um and this finding the scenario more interesting and more enriching actually also led to higher donations too. So it seems that people who um appreciate the scenario or get something personally from the scenario are also then willing to give back in terms of donations, which is interesting. So I think the medium is important. So like being immersed and having this kind of embodied experience is important, but we also found the importance of good storytelling and and writing things that people can connect with.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

And and I noticed at one point in the paper that another thing you did was try to determine the level of prior experience people had of VR. Because I guess another question is is there an element of the effect of it being slightly down to novelty? And actually, the more that you get accustomed to VR, the less effective it becomes. Did you find anything uh there?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah, so we tried, we tried to look at that, but unfortunately, most people in our study, or maybe fortunately, um, hadn't had extensive experience with VR before. So only a few people had experienced VR many times. Most people had done it once or maybe a few times. So we didn't find a novelty effect, but it could be that it was just very novel for most people. And then as time goes on and as people become more and more familiar with VR, time will tell whether it's the effect of novelty or whether it's um the medium itself.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yeah, well, I mean, I guess an interesting piece of research, perhaps for a few years' time when people become more generally accustomed to VR. Um, I guess the the other thing I wanted to ask, which again maybe is you know a slightly wider question and more speculative, but did you get any sense within the uh experiment that you were working on of some of the potential ethical concerns we might need to bear in mind when we're thinking about using this tool? Because it seems as though it does have utility and potentially power, but it might also raise all kinds of questions about what is or isn't appropriate in terms of giving people experiences and trying to manipulate their empathy and emotions.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Yes, I think that there's an interesting paper about this. I I can't quite remember who it's from, um, which talked exactly about this. So the ethical implications of manipulating people's emotions in order to get their um donations and whether this is something that one should do or not. And I think I think it's still an open question, honestly. I think um we we do have an argument in the paper too that VR can also help to enhance um information transfer. So rather than just um appealing to enhanced emotions, we can also uh present rational arguments or just give them an idea of the logistics of a situation, for example, which would then also maybe increase donations that way too. So I agree that it's a bit of a gray area as to whether people should be more emotionally manipulated, but I think that giving people a chance to experience what their the impact of their philanthropic activities is, is great. And I think that you can do it in many different ways that don't all require emotion. So one idea that we had was also if you have like a task that uh where we didn't have this in in our um VR scenario, but it was an idea for maybe future scenarios where the scenario, the interactivity element is directly related to the outcome. So you have maybe a logistical problem to solve, or you have some sort of interaction that you need to do and you need to succeed in order to um to have the desired outcome at the end. And I think that this is also a way of doing it that maybe stimulates more people's interest and their immersion in that way. So you're not playing the emotion card, but and it could still be a way to help people to connect to different causes. And I think the the truth is also it's very hard to divorce emotions completely from any kind of thought. So people are going to be experiencing emotions as they do different things, and it's not necessarily a good or bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Um it's obviously still relatively sort of early days in terms of the use of VR um within fundraising. Um, but you know, at this point, what kind of insights do you think this work can offer for you know practitioners or people in the field of practice who are thinking about experimenting with VR?

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah, I think I think one thing that we help answer is whether it's worth it, because there's an additional cost, of course, to develop VR modules and to disseminate VR modules, right? It requires a lot more time and effort and uh technology than just mailing um letters to people. So I think that uh what we're what we try to show too is that okay, VR is increasing donations, but it's it's by this much. So then it's like more or less up to you to decide is it worth it or not, or do you want to use it just for special occasions or and I think that the fact that we found that storytelling elements are also very important can give people ideas for other ways that they can increase people's connectivity to this kind of thing without without relying on the technology per se. So I think what we're telling people is yes, uh VR is a good medium for this, and we found some effects, but there are also some other things you can do, and it's also good to consider whether VR is a good fit for you or not. So one thing that also I think would be a great follow-up study is that in what we did was people came to the lab and then we put them in the VR or no VR condition. But what we found was that we had a lot of interest from participants in this study. So when people heard that there was a VR study going on at the university, we had a lot of people coming and volunteering. And so I think that VR also has a lot of power just to get people in the door and get people to interact where where they might not just do it if someone approached them on the street to talk about an initiative. So I think that VR has potentially a lot of power there too, as you said, you know, something novel, something exciting that people want to do. So it could be that it has stronger effects than what we've recorded because it's just attracting more people to want to uh to want to talk to to different philanthropic organizations and find out what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Which I mean, as you say, for fundraisers in itself is a very practical finding, potentially. Um you were saying you obviously worked with the the ICRC on on this study. So there was a kind of link automatically between practice and academia. One of the things in this kind of podcast series, in the research notes series, that is a common thread is is that question of what the links are like between academia and practice in in the field of philanthropy. What's your sense of that? Do you find it relatively easy to get connection and to sort of disseminate your findings, or do you think there are still challenges when it comes to trying to get academic insight into practice?

SPEAKER_02 31:28

I think there are a lot of challenges. I think that academics aren't um aren't always necessarily good at uh communicating their ideas. And I think that the kind of questions that interest academics are often not the same ones that interest practitioners. So I think we were very fortunate in that we worked with the ICRC from the beginning. So from the ideas of the experimental design, we asked them, okay, what kind of questions do you want answered? What do you want to know? And they were really interested, not just is VR effective, but what kind of modules should we be developing, which led us to have all of these, you know, questions about um what people were getting out of it and uh what they thought of the scenario as well, not just a measure of donations. So I think that it if academics can talk more to practitioners at the early stages, it's helpful too. Because instead of us just being like, oh, this is something we we found out, and people are like, okay, um, we'll see if we can apply that, then we can ask, well, what kind of questions do you want us to investigate? And then I think that this partnership is to me personally is very interesting because I like research that's applicable in in a more um, let's say, real world or broader setting.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah, absolutely. Um just finally before I let you go, what what are you working on yourself at the moment? Are you kind of developing this research further or are there other areas related to it that you're working on?

SPEAKER_02 32:51

So there are um some other um ideas for this, but they haven't gotten off the ground. One of them is to do this field study to see if we can um um get people, more people to interact with with the philanthropy if VR is involved. Another study that we're looking at um is people's ideas around um B Labs. So whether the B Lab label how if it's being effective at communicating to people um that companies have a certain ethical standards, and um whether A, the communication is effective, B, people uh trust the label and see how it affects uh consumer choices. So it's another one with practical applications too.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Great. Well, that all sounds really interesting. So yeah, be interested to see where um you know where all of that research goes. Just remains to say thanks ever so much, Nina, for finding time to come on the podcast. It's great to hear about the work. And obviously, I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can find the paper and the research note based on it.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Great, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Okay, and then last but very much not least for this episode, we have Livia Ventura uh talking about her work looking at the idea of the Benefit Corporation or the B Corporation and trying to apply a theoretical lens to try and understand where this fits in some of the kind of thinking about uh classical economics and the purpose of corporate forms uh and whether it represents a new form of firm altruism. So let's hear from Livia. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Dr. Livia Ventura. Hi there, Livia.

SPEAKER_04 34:31

Hi, good morning, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Great. Uh and yeah, great to have you on the podcast. Um, and yeah, we're here um primarily to talk about uh the uh read the paper that's uh featured in the most recent Earn Op Research uh series note, um, uh, which is called Philanthropy and the For-Profit Corporation. Uh, the Benefit Corporation is a new form of firm altruism. Um so it's a really interesting paper about the kind of blending of uh of lines between uh the for-profit sphere and and the not-for-profit sphere. Um, so maybe the best place to start is if you could tell us a bit in your own words about what the focus of the paper is and how it came about and what the key findings are.

SPEAKER_04 35:07

Sure, thank you so much. And well, the basic idea is to analyze how organizational forms are for-profit corporation, are changing towards the main goal of sustainability. So the paper is about the development of a new uh way of reading this kind of new structures. And so the basic idea is sustainability is now at the heart of the not only the political agenda, but also of the debate of corporate governance of business corporations. And so, considering the historical traditional dichotomy between for-profit entities and not-for-profit entities, the development of these new hybrid or dual-purpose entities struggles to find uh the right space where, of course, in capitalist systems on one hand, and in the other hand, in the corporate governance debate or theories, if we want to call them as theories. So my paper tried to read the new hybrid entity development through different lenses, not the lenses of the home economical paradigm of neoclassical economics, but through behavioral law and economics and through the Yale approach to the economic analysis of law, in particular using Professor Calabresi categories. And so this is the attempt they have done to try to categorize hybrid entities within the debate.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Yeah, and it's really interesting. And maybe we could say a bit more about um for people listening. I mean, you sort of mentioned the kind of classical economic paradigm, which is essentially the idea of kind of homo economicus in a kind of rational, self-interested economic unit, just doing everybody doing things for their own self-interest. And altruism as a whole doesn't really fit very neatly into that, particularly not in the context of the um the sort of paradigm where that's how we think about for-profit corporations. What what is it about the the um the sort of um the framework that Calabrazi and others have put in place that allows you maybe to explain things a bit differently?

SPEAKER_04 37:08

Yes, basically, as you were saying, we are uh used to think about Photopic Corporation as a selfish actor in the economic uh uh in the economic sphere, just uh with the goal to make profit and distributes profit without any limits to the owners of the company. And so they sticks perfectly with the neoclassical idea of the om economicus. But the fact is that if we take a look at realities, uh so many studies have demonstrated, we have to say that altruism exists, beneficials exist, and the unselfish pro-social behavior is something that exists in human reality, in human life. And so basically, uh Professor Calabresi, through a different approach to the economic analysis of law, in his last book, The Future of Analysis, Economic Analysis of Law, tried to uh describe altruism and beneficience as hands in themselves, as goods that people want to achieve and for the achievement of which they are willing to pay a price. So, in this way, if we think that altruism with that lenses, we can see how hybrid entities and dual purpose companies can be legitimized into the economic theories, into the capitalist system, and so on. So I just try to put these lenses on this legal structure. And through them, I demonstrated that it's not irrational to create and to establish a dual purpose company, which is a company's this is maybe irrelevant to say, which is characterized by two main goals. The one is the profit goal, and the second one, which has the same exact value, or the first one, is the creation of a public benefit, common benefit, positive externality, so reduction of negative externalities for the society and the environment. So they are not irrational through these lenses because they are, even though they are not fixed with the economics paradigm, because basically it's through the voluntary activity of shareholders or owners of the company that altruism is included into the company agreement and the company purpose clause. And so it's the interest of shareholders itself that it's broadened and include both the profit and so also the production of share value and benefits for the community. So Professor Calabresi's approach helped me to find a way in justifying the existence in reality of this kind of structures.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, and it's really interesting. And and something you mentioned a few points in in the paper is that it it provides a new sort of intellectual framework for understanding it. But the actual phenomenon of companies having some um measure of of uh respecting social responsibility or altruism, that that is not in itself necessarily new, because actually many companies have done that for a long time. Do you think that that there is something genuinely new about the idea of enshrining that in a legal form, though, which seems to be uh you know what the B Corporation model particularly is is all about? Is that something genuinely new that it's kind of taken that broader uh fact that companies were doing things that were seemingly altruistic anyway, but has kind of turned it into a hard fact of governance and legal structure?

SPEAKER_04 40:32

Yes, I think that the uh answer of the law to this request of firm altruism from for-profit companies, it's really important for several reasons. First of all, because of course the introduction of a specific law is a regulation about the benefit corporation legal model that we have in the United States, in Italy, in France, and Spain, and in a lot of countries in South in South America, so it changed the idea of corporate law and also gives companies a structure that to follow. So if you really want to be a sustainable company, if you want to create a value for the community, you have, you can say, a box of rules that you are that is necessary that you follow. And it's is I think that it's relevant because in that way, first of all, the altruistic purpose enters into the company agreement. It means that it's binding for shareholders in case of change of control, is binding for directors because they have to pursue the goal including in the company agreement. Second, we have a consequence of this inclusion in the company agreement, which is relevant from the legal perspective. Why? Because directors are accountable for this. So they can uh they can be liable if they do not pursue also the altruistic purpose. This is different. This is not just the idea that they can do something, which could happen in ordinary companies, for example, of course, depending on the legal system and the rules applicable to ordinary corporations, but they must, they have to do something. And this is really relevant, I think, in terms of accountability. And also because another consequence from the practical perspective is that the inclusion to company agreement and the accountability of directors put the idea of altruism and basically uh common benefit corpus into the company's strategies. So it's not something which is outside, it's a different, it's it's not strategies, it's not strategy, it's it's not CSR, sorry, but it's strategy. And so this is relevant. And the third consequence is that this companies have duty to disclose their impact. And so the transparency requirements are higher than ordinary corporations. And so I think this is the reason why a legal struct a legal structures and legal provisions for this company are really useful.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Yeah, no, it's a really interesting way of framing it. And I guess I just one sort of final question on the context of the paper and a slightly um sort of how it fits in a broader perspective. The fact that we have these legal structures now that enshrine um social purpose, in your view, does that mean that we should think of these things as an expansion of the nonprofit sphere or an expansion of the commercial sphere? Or is it genuinely a sort of new fourth sector that we should view in a different way?

SPEAKER_04 43:19

I tend to say that it's a new fourth sector, because the idea of balance, balancing the purposes, it's something different than we experienced in the past. And but at the same time, I have to say that I see these dual purpose structures as more close to the for-profit. And this is the important things in my perspective, because this is it's like having a final goal, which is that all for profit companies must move towards that direction. And so it's like creating a path for them and helping them to make the right moves in order to be sustainable for profit companies. But they are into a nowadays, they are into a different sector, my perspective. is the fourth sector.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Yeah, I think that's really interesting because there's a lot of questions, I think, about you know this being a positive development, but whether from particularly from the perspective of the nonprofit sphere, whether it is an alternative or an addition or whether it should be viewed as something that's in competition with with traditional nonprofits. And it's interesting, I think, yeah, to to be clear about the fact that the goal is to to drive for-profit activity in that direction. I I just wanted to zoom out and ask sort of uh a question about um your experience of trying to connect the work that you do in academia with with practice because obviously philanthropy and and the nonprofit world is is an area in which the academic study of it is kind of inherently pretty linked to practice. But I you know I've heard from lots of people the connections are not always as easy as you would hope. What what have you found in terms of getting nonprofit practitioners to engage in your research or in terms of kind of disseminating the findings? Have you found that easy or are there challenges?

SPEAKER_04 44:59

Well I have to say that I started to study this topic since uh almost 10 years ago and at the beginning it was it was very tough because it the we can say that there was no such development in terms of sustainability. We have we had a radical change in the last few years.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:17

And um but I have to say that I started studying this uh from the academic academic perspective but soon after I started I had the chance to put it into practice why because I had the chance to be in the working group which in Italy helped uh the drafting of the bill that introduced the societal benefit in Italy. And so we have consultations and so we have linked with companies association and then after the enactment of the law in Italy I have been um founding members and still work as an academic member the scientific committee with the Italian association of societal benefits. So we are directly linked to practitioners to entrepreneurs and to people working in that area and I can say that they were it was like they were waiting for something like this. It was it looks it looks to it seems to me that um there was a need in the society in the entrepreneurs community and uh I can say the same for what I'm doing now at the Cambridge Institute for sustainability leadership because I'm trying to and continuing to work in this in this field and we are trying to put together companies in order to understand their feedback on this on these new structures and on this new regulation. So I think that in the society there's a big part of society which is really interested and also companies are nowadays really interested in understanding the functioning and the boundaries of these new legal entities.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah absolutely I mean it does seem as though there's been a a huge increase in in appetite for that and you touched on it there but the other thing I just wanted to ask is um what it is that you're working on now whether it's you know as you say it sounds like some of it is a development of this work and whether there are other kind of related areas that you're also interested in. Because I know often when I talk to people the actual work they've done that features in these research notes is a few years old by the time it uh gets to the research notes.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

So yes so first of all what I'm doing at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership is to develop a model law for dual corpus structures. So I'm undergoing a comparative law studies of all the existing regulations we have about 10 jurisdictions well in the US we have a lot of them but considering the US as one model we have around 10 jurisdictions we can say and so through the comparative law analysis the idea is to create a model law which should be applicable in different legal contexts or different legal traditions and for different kinds of companies so from small medium enterprises to large enterprises and it's going to be based on the US and also the civil law models that have been developed in Europe and in South America. And this is my goal right now and the other area that I touched in my studies and that I'm continuing to investigate is um private procurement and sustainable private procurement. So it has been really interesting to see the development of the uh European directive on sustainable corporate governance which is mainly based on private procurement sustainability and due diligence activities. And I think that they are very close to the idea of dual corpus company because one of the main aspects of also in practice I can say a dual corpus company is having a specific policy for procurement. And um and so I think that the two areas and waiting for the outcome of the European discussion on it are really important in order to see the for-profit corporation of the future especially within the European Union.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

It sounds absolutely fascinating so it'll be really interesting to see when when that comes out and just remains to say thanks ever so much for finding time to come on the podcast. Really interesting to hear about the research and all the best with with it in the future. Thank you so much it's been a pleasure to be here and I hope to to see you soon okay great well my thanks again to all of the interviewees for coming on the podcast to Marlou to Nina and to Livia it was great to hear about all of their work and hopefully you really enjoyed it. As I say I will put links in the show notes to places where you can find all of those research notes and all the rest of the Earnop research notes on on many other topics besides. I'll also put links to the actual papers that Marlou Nina and Livia published so that you can read those in more depth if you want to and I'll put some links also in the show notes to other places where you can find interesting topics that relate to some of the things we've been talking about. Obviously if you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and civil society do check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters dot com. You can follow me on social media if you like things in a much more short and fatuous form. You can find me on Twitter at Rodri underscore H underscore Davis. I'm increasingly on LinkedIn these days as Twitter uh and refuse to call it X sort of slowly implodes. I'm in various other places although not really doing very much with those accounts at the moment but you know do feel free to tap me up. If you've got ideas for things that we could talk about on future episodes or people that I could interview do drop me a line. The contact details are at the website other than that just like subscribe please do leave a nice review on iTunes or wherever else you get your podcasts if you get a chance because that would uh really help uh and other than that I will see you next time bye