Acceptance Address on the Occasion of the Award of an Honorary Doctorate from the Poznań University of Economics and Business

First let me thank all of you for this wonderful recognition and for the generous laudations. As I was listening, I could not help thinking about the history and evolution of my body of work. While my work covers a broad range of fields, it is all connected. Work in one field influences new thinking about others. All my work is based on a broad, systemic view of competition at multiple levels and its impact on societal outcomes. Furthering an understanding of what we need to accomplish in order to drive economic and social progress is my passion, and where I seek to contribute through all of my work. Today, given limited time, I will talk about just one topic where there is rapidly growing interest and implications for business practice: what should be the role of business in society. This is a very important question because the world is full of problems: social problems, such as education, health, nutrition, housing, clean water, discrimination, economic problems such as unequal opportunity, low income, and many others. Awareness of these problems has been increasing especially over recent decades. Traditionally, we have tackled such social problems through two institutions. One, of course, is government. Government’s job is to make society better. Second, are NGOs and non-profits which represent a comparatively new sector that was much less significant 50 or 75 years ago. There are countless organisations around the world dedicated to social improvement in specific areas, such as child health, reducing violence, or advancing environmental issues.