The role of the private sector in expanding economic opportunity through collaborative action

This article by Harvard University looks at the role of businesses in expanding economic opportunity, through re-organisation of their supply chain, to include how people at the bottom of the pyramid can be included in economic growth. It explores how businesses can bring about social and economic development through employment, encouraging entrepreneurial activity, cultivating inter-firm linkages, enabling technological transfer, building human capital and physical infrastructure, generating public revenue for governments and offering a variety of goods and services to consumers and other businesses. 

Inclusive business (creating value for both business and society) is becoming increasingly essential as businesses seek new markets in emerging economies. As such they need to to be seen to be 'doing good' in order to have a social licence to operate.