Understanding Multiple Perspectives on Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology

de la Cruz Jara, Marcelo F.; Spanjol, Jelena Article — Published Version Understanding Multiple Perspectives on Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology Journal of Business Ethics Provided in Cooperation with: Springer Nature Suggested Citation: de la Cruz Jara, Marcelo F.; Spanjol, Jelena (2024) : Understanding Multiple Perspectives on Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology, Journal of Business Ethics, ISSN 1573-0697, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, Vol. 198, Iss. 2, pp. 407-435, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05692-1 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/323303 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Vol.:(0123456789) Journal of Business Ethics (2025) 198:407–435 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05692-1 ORIGINAL PAPER Understanding Multiple Perspectives onSocial Value inBusiness: AnIntegrative Review andTypology MarceloF.delaCruzJara1 · JelenaSpanjol1 Received: 11 July 2022 / Accepted: 9 April 2024 / Published online: 7 June 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract Although the concept of social value has been present in business literature for over a century, it lacks definitional consensus, is often imprecise, and has not been sufficiently theorized. With social value becoming more prevalent across business scholarship domains, the lack of conceptual clarity and consistency hampers substantive research progress. We conduct an integrative review of 288 articles drawn from 60 peer-reviewed journals covering a wide spectrum of business domains. We synthesize the review findings into a polythetic typology that identifies five distinct approaches to understanding and managing social value in business. The proposed typology of social value organizes and consolidates the theoretical and conceptual heterogeneity of the social value concept providing much-needed clarity and structure for future research. It allows scholars to structure and unify various conceptualizations into a more holistic yet nuanced understanding, and the necessary (but currently lacking) clarity to enable new theorizing and guide future research. The proposed typology further offers new ways of thinking about social value and provides direction to managerial practice on the desirability and feasibility of implementing different social value approaches into firms’ core business operations and strategies. Keywords Social value· Typology· Integrative review Introduction Creating social value is no longer an organizational imperative restricted to philanthropic or non-profit organizations. Indeed, for-profit firms1 are increasingly being called on to effectively contribute to society, with major attention garnered by BlackRock’s annual letters to CEOs (e.g., Fink, 2018), Business Roundtable’s (2019) redefinition of business purpose, and Klaus Schwab’s (2020) Davos Manifest. These declarations put pressure on firms’ way of conducting business (Harrison etal., 2020), influencing tactical and strategic decision-making. For example, Oliver Zipse, chairman of the BMW Group, announced in July 2020 that top management remuneration would partly depend on meeting sustainability goals (Fasse, 2020). At the same time, scholars across business domains have called for prioritizing inquiries into firms’ social value creation (e.g., de Bakker etal., 2020) and firms’ contributions to societal progress and grand challenges (e.g., Barnett etal., 2020). However, social value represents a concept that has not been sufficiently theorized (Ballesteros etal., 2017), lacks consensus in literature (Hietschold etal., 2022; Nason etal., 2018; Rawhouser etal., 2019; Saebi etal., 2019), and is imprecise and subjective (Stevens etal., 2015), leading to a variety of conceptualizations across studies. Social value creation is inherent to business as it is intertwined with questions about what business does to society and what business can do for society (Drucker, 1974). Indeed, the concept of social value is fundamental to business ethics and notions of what is right or wrong, what is harmful or beneficial (Weiss, 2022), and “the way that we live together and treat each other” (Greenwood & Freeman, 2018, p. 3). Reflecting the inherent importance of social value to business practice, it has been present in business literature for over a century. Introduced by the American neoclassical economist John Bates Clark (Clark, * Marcelo F. dela Cruz Jara delacr[email protected] Jelena Spanjol [email protected] 1 Institute forInnovation Management, Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität (LMU) München, LMU Munich School ofManagement, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539Munich, Germany 1 Hereinafter also referred to as “firms”. 408 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol 1886) and the organismic theory of society (Homan, 1927), the idea of social value was initially criticized as a hypothetical abstraction in Marx’s capital (Lexis, 1895), interpreted as value-in-exchange in economic processes (Schumpeter, 1909; Tuttle, 1901), and finally seen as the social explanation of economic value (Perry, 1916). In the 1970s, management scholars begun using the concept of social value to describe economic goods contributing to the good of society and thereby providing a moral justification for business (Elbing, 1970). Over the past decades, various literature streams have subsequently developed their own conceptualizations of social value. For example, while corporate social responsibility (CSR) scholars understand social value as the result of specific actions that further social good going beyond firms’ interests and legal requirements (e.g., McWilliams & Siegel, 2001), corporate sustainability scholars define social value as firms’ voluntary contributions to meet the needs of present and future generations (e.g., Hansen & Schaltegger, 2016). Beyond the various conceptualizations (implicit or explicit) of social value in CSR and sustainability literatures, other terms have been introduced that further complicate the conceptual core and scope of the social value concept. For example, blended value (Nicholls, 2009) and shared value (Porter & Kramer, 2006) both call for the simultaneous creation of financial and social returns by firms, adding to the fuzziness of the social value concept. This conceptual (and theoretical) heterogeneity of social value has hindered a common understanding across scholars and studies (Kroeger & Weber, 2014), leading to tautological definitions based on an artificial homogeneity of what social means (Nicholls, 2006; Stevens etal., 2015) and on the fuzziness of what social value implies (Kroeger & Weber, 2014). The persistent ambiguity of the social value concept hinders the comparability of empirical studies within and across business domains that is critical to develop overarching insights into social value to enable substantive research progress. Moreover, the fuzziness of the focal concept poses a major challenge for practitioners attempting to integrate social value into their business strategies and operations. Against this backdrop, the research objectives of our study are twofold. First, we aim to critically synthesize extant literature to offer a detailed conceptualization of social value that resolves conceptual contradictions and produces novel perspectives (McInnis, 2011). This objective has resulted in the Social Value Radar framework (see Fig.2). Second, we aim to offer a classification scheme that recognizes the different manifestations and theoretical perspectives of the social value concept (McInnis, 2011) providing a differentiated view on the focal concept. This objective has resulted in the Typology of Social Value (see Table3 and Fig.3). Hence, our study seeks to answer the overarching research question: How is social value conceptualized across business domains? Within this broad inquiry, we assess three more specific aspects: (a) What are the ontological properties of the social value concept? By investigating critical conceptual properties (e.g., what does social in social value imply), we are able to identify and analyze ontological commonalities and differences of the concept across domains. (b) What theories have been used in research around social value? By reviewing theories and theoretical approaches employed by studies, we are able to identify potential mono-perspective biases and fruitful alternative theoretical lenses for future theorizing. (c) How can different social value understandings be consolidated and organized? By integrating different social value understandings, we are able to create a holistic and nuanced picture of the social value concept and identify implications for research and managerial practice as well as emerging topics and research opportunities. To answer our research questions, we conduct an integrative literature review and systematic content analysis (Elsbach & Knippenberg, 2020; Torraco, 2016; Weber, 1990) in an effort to cover a wide spectrum of business domains (using the Financial Times 50 journal list; see Table1 for full listing) to whom social value may be of interest. Further, we develop a classification scheme for social value guided by an organizing framework (Bailey, 1994; McKelvey, 1982) and derive implications for theory, practice, and future research. Our review complements three recent reviews related to our inquiry as follows. First, Dembek etal. (2016) analyze the ontological and epistemological properties of the concept shared value, whereas this review focuses on the broader and more encompassing concept social value. Second, Rawhouser etal. (2019) offer a helpful typology of social impact within the social entrepreneurship literature, whereas this review offers a typology of social value across business domains, going beyond an entrepreneurship perspective. Third, Hietschold etal. (2022) review social entrepreneurship literature to identify mechanisms leading to social change as outcome of entrepreneurs’ actions, whereas our review focuses on the broader social value concept going beyond the entrepreneurs’ perspective. Our study contributes to research and practice in several ways. First, we offer a typology of social value consisting of cohesive and specific social value approaches that organizes and consolidates different theoretical perspectives, providing the much-needed clarity and structure of scholarly inquiries from across business domains. Second, our integrative review broadens the intellectual base of business ethics and sets a baseline framework (social value radar and typology) 409 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology for interdisciplinary scholarship (Greenwood & Freeman, 2017). Third, we match approaches to suitable theoretical foundations, research philosophies, and research strategies building on the ontological and epistemological assumptions in each approach. Such guidance streamlines future research efforts and supports an epistemic awareness that in turn is Table 1 Overview of Business Domains and Journals Assessed in Review (Final Sample Coverage: Journals = 60, Articles = 288) a Journal not in initial sample list, but included after additional articles were identified through cross-referencing and backward search (Hiebl, 2023) b Journal included in the initial journal list. Number of sampled articles includes one additional article identified through backward search that used a different terminology which was not covered in our initial search terms Business Domain and Journal (Number of Articles in Final Review Sample) Accounting (12) Accounting Review (5), Accounting, Organizations and Society (3), Contemporary Accounting Research (1), Journal of Accounting Research (2), Review of Accounting Studies (1) Business Ethics (41) Business Ethics Quarterly (9), Business & Society (10), Journal of Business Ethicsb (22) Economics (34) American Economic Review (9), Econometrica (4), Journal of Political Economy (9), Quarterly Journal of Economics (10), RAND Journal of Economicsa (1), Review of Economic Studies (1) Entrepreneurship (20) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (8), International Small Business Journala (1), Journal of Business Venturing (8), Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (3) Finance (4) Journal of Finance (3), Review of Finance (1) Financial Economics (9) Journal of Financial Economics (4), The Review of Financial Studies (5) Future Studies (1) Technological Forecasting and Social Changea (1) Human Resource Management (9) Human Relations (8), Human Resource Management (1) Information Systems (14) Information Systems Research (4), Journal of Management Information Systems (5), MIS Quarterly (5) Innovation Management (2) Stanford Social Innovation Reviewa (2) International Business (5) Journal of International Business Studies (3), Journal of World Businessa (2) Management (75) Academy of Management Journal (15), Academy of Management Reviewb (14), Administrative Science Quarterly (6), California Management Reviewa (1), Harvard Business Reviewa (1), International Journal of Management Reviewsa (1), Journal of Management (7), Journal of Management Studies (7), Management Science (7), Research Policy (14), Strategic Management Journal (2) Marketing (28) Journal of Consumer Research (4), Journal of Marketing (4), Journal of Marketing Research (2), Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (15), Marketing Science (3) Medicine (1) Journal of the American Medical Associationa (1) Operations Research (5) Operations Research (3), Production and Operations Management (2) Organizational Behavior (12) Organization Science (4), Organization Studies (4), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (4) Psychology (15) American Psychologista (1), Journal of Applied Psychology (7), Journal of Personality and Social Psychologya (4), Judgement and Decision Makinga (1), Psychiatrya (1), Social Psychology Quarterlya (1) Sociology (1) The Sociological Reviewa (1) 410 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol vital to deepen ethical analysis (Greenwood & Freeman, 2018). Fourth, our research enables new theorizing, which we identify through highlighting especially salient research priorities, responding to the need for new impulses and perspectives. Finally, we provide direction to managerial practice on the applicability of different social value approaches in firms’ core business practices and strategies to respond to the new organizational imperative of managing social value creation (or destruction). Overall, with the social value radar and the typology of social value, we enhance researchers’ and practitioners’ understanding of social value in the business context, in an effort to “make the institution of business a greater servant of humanity” (Greenwood & Freeman, 2017, p. 1). The organization of the paper is as follows: First, we briefly present an organizing framework of social value necessary to guide the development of a typology. Second, we describe the review methodology. Third, we discuss the current state of research on social value and the insights gleaned from our content analysis. Fourth, we develop a typology of social value and derive implications for theory and practice. Last, we propose promising directions for future research and draw conclusions. An Organizing Framework ofSocial Value Our typology of social value is an inductively derived classification scheme that builds on the ontological properties of the social value concept. To identify these critical properties, we follow de la Cruz Jara etal. (2024) andfirst decomposed the “social value” concept to conduct an initial inquiry into the nature of “social” and the nature of “value”. This yielded an organizing framework characterizing the social value concept by means of four dimensions: 1) meaning of the term “social” (meaning of social), 2) meaning of the term “value” (meaning of value), 3) key mechanisms of value creation (underlying value creation assumptions), and 4) beneficiaries of the created value and reasoning of benefit for these beneficiaries (underlying value capturing assumptions). These four identified conceptual dimensions enable us to unpack and analyze individually the constituting elements of the social value concept, going beyond the initial conceptualization provided by de la Cruz Jara etal. (2024). The term “social” is problematic, ambiguous, vague and often tautologically defined (Choi & Majumdar, 2014; Nicholls, 2006; Santos, 2012), often contrasted with the term “economic” or differentiating between the collective and the individual (Leisering, 2013). According to Schatzki (1988) in his work on the nature of social reality, the term “social” can be defined as any mode of human coexistence. The Latin word socialis indicates companionship, a descriptive meaning that persists in the Spanish or French languages in which social refers to the interaction between at least two people (Leisering, 2013; Schatzki, 1988). A second less descriptive and more normative connotation of the term “social” arose in Germany in the nineteenth century referring to the qualification of living conditions as unacceptable and representing the origin of social policy as an interdisciplinary and applied subject (Leisering, 2013). In business literature, the term “social” is based on these descriptive and normative connotations. For example, Robinson etal. (2013) understand “social” as a group or network of interacting individuals embedded in an organizational system when talking about social value in the context of workplace ostracism. In contrast, Freudenreich etal. (2020) speak of “social” as related to the society when referring to social value creation in sustainability-oriented business models. Lastly, Kroeger and Weber (2014) refer to “social” as a focus on individuals below a certain living standard in the context of social interventions that create value for such disadvantagedpopulation. The term “value” has multidimensional and multilevel connotations with a wide range of meanings (Kraatz etal., 2020) that are central in different research streams (Call & Ployhart, 2021; Lepak etal., 2007). Taking into account literature on the nature, origins, and functions of value, we consider three basic conceptual properties of the term “value”. These properties refer to the meaning of value in general and the related and complementary processes of value creation and value capturing inherent in firms’ activities (Bowman & Ambrosini, 2000; Kraatz etal., 2020; Lepak etal., 2007). The conceptualization of “value” is largely influenced by Kluckhohn’s (1951) definition of value developed in the sociology domain as “a conception, implicit or explicit, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a social group, of the desirable that influences the selection from available modes, means and ends of action” (p. 395). This understanding assumes that value is something constructed encompassing affective, cognitive, and conative components. Another related influential definition conceptualizes values as cognitive representations of concepts or beliefs about desirable end states that guide human behavior (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987). Such cognitive representations enable humans to cope with biological needs (e.g., love), interact effectively with other humans in organized systems (e.g., honesty), and fulfill demands for group survival (e.g., world peace). Thus, particular values are the same for all humans; however, the personal arrangement of priorities might differ. From a firm perspective, value represents the worthiness or importance of business activities to the customer (i.e., use value) and to the firm (i.e., exchange value) itself (McWilliams & Siegel, 2011). While exchange value is typically realized through monetary mechanisms, use value is a subjective perception of the benefit of an offer (typically for the customer). This value perspective is linked to firms’ 411 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology resources and ability to satisfy customer demands. Therefore, the creation of value represents firms’ processes in cooperation with partners and suppliers to generate worthiness to customers. These processes are related to the deployment of resources to innovate, produce, and deliver products or services to the market that enable the realization of revenues (e.g., Mizik & Jacobson, 2003). By contrast, value capturing represents the appropriation of (parts of) the benefit that results from value creation (Chesbrough etal., 2018). In management literature, this appropriation step is engendered in firm business models and refers to the financial and non-financial returns from value creation relevant to the firm and its stakeholders (e.g., employees, customers, society). Taking the perspective of the firm as value provider, value capturing by firms refers to securing profits after accounting for costs of resources mobilized for value creation (Mizik & Jacobson, 2003), and value capturing by firms’ stakeholders refers to a subjective perception or judgment of benefit (i.e., a reasoning) from the value created (Bowman & Ambrosini, 2000; Lepak etal., 2007). To summarize, “social” and “value” are terms deeply intertwined with how firms interpret and enact their responsibility to contribute to society. Depending on its interpretation of what “social” and “value” mean (both separately and in combination), a firm can enact strategies of rational self-interest driven by free market values or a purposeful alignment of the business model towards direct support of stakeholders (Buono & Nichols, 1990; Weiss, 2022). Thus, bringing “social” and “value” together into a single concept is not a trivial task. Moreover, the analysis and integration of social value conceptualizations into a typology requires a logically coherent framework aligned with the four discussed critical dimensions of the constituent terms. Thus, these dimensions represent the architecture of our typology, structuring the analysis of the surveyed literature. We follow an inductive approach to derivespecific theoretical perspectives for each dimension (see Table2) offering a robust classification of social value. Next, we describe the analysis process in detail. Method We conducted an integrative literature review, a methodology that differs from other reviews by examining, criticizing, and synthesizing a representative body of evidence moving beyond a descriptive analysis toward the generation of new insights and perspectives (Elsbach & Knippenberg, 2020; Torraco, 2016). Integrative reviews are important because they are catalysts for future research and lay the foundation for new theorizing (Torraco, 2016) – both are aims that we meet by providing a typology of social value. We employ replicable review procedures based on best practices identified in Elsbach and Knippenberg (2020), Hiebl (2023), Torraco (2016), and Tranfield etal. (2003). In addition, we follow procedures and criteria elaborated by Gioia etal. (2013), Krippendorff (1989) and Weber (1990) for the coding, analysis, and interpretation of content (content analysis process). Finally, we develop the social value typology based on best practices in classification identified by Bailey (1994) and McKelvey (1982). For a summary of best practices and how those are reflected in our review, please refer to Appendix 1. Table 2 Coding Scheme Applied in Content Analysis a Exemplary description coded is: “( …) social value when indicating the output of business practices that has a beneficial impact on society as a whole and can be directly or indirectly measured” (Garst etal., 2021, p. 1353) Dimension Coding Explanation Coding Type Recording Unit Example of Codinga Meaning of social Extract the underlying understanding explicitly or implicitly explaining how social is understood Descriptive Phrase Related to the society Meaning of value Extract the underlying understanding explicitly or implicitly explaining how value is understood Descriptive Phrase Output is significant for the common (aggregated preference) Underlying value creation assumption Extract the key mechanisms mentioned as critical and necessary to generate value In vivo Phrase Business practices Underlying value capturing assumption Extract beneficiaries/ value capturers of the created value (beyond the value creator, e.g., the firm) In vivo Phrase Society as a whole Extract reasons explaining why the beneficiary/value capturer values the created value (reasoning of benefit) In vivo Phrase Beneficial impact 412 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol Pre‑Scanning, Searching, andScreening ofLiterature We follow impactful reviews (e.g., Aguilera etal., 2021; Krause etal., 2022) and capture evidence published across different business domains by drawing on the Financial Times Research Rank list of top 50 business journals (FT50)2 in order to provide a structured approach for selecting journals across business domains and ensure our analysis and typology reflect a representative broad base covering a high-quality stock of knowledge (Aguilera etal., 2021; Rawhouser etal., 2019). Additionally, we selected two specialized journals3 addressing explicitly issues at the intersection of business and society and drawing submissions from a wide variety of business domains: Business & Society and Business Ethics Quarterly. This journal selection approach yielded an initial search list of 50 academic journals4 across 14 business scholarship domains (see Table1 for an overview). We implemented the article sampling procedure in three stages: (1) pre-scanning, (2) searching, and (3) screening (see Fig.1). We began by running a literature pre-scan to collect a few diverse but representative publications that enabled us to get a sense of the field and sharpen our article search strategy. Building on the findings from Rawhouser etal.’s (2019) review of social impact, we selected four representative journals from our initial journal sample list enabling us to achieve a certain comprehensiveness and heterogeneity of domains covered in this stage: Journal of Business Ethics (JBE), Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS), and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS). With AMJ and JBE, we sought to cover the broader management literature and a variety of domains investigating ethical issues in business (e.g., entrepreneurship, impact investing, supply chain management, operations, organization studies, etc.). Additionally, we selected AOS and JAMS to cover two nonmanagement domains and have a counterpart to a potential bias towards management journals. While AOS covers the relationships among accounting and firms’ socio-political environment from an interdisciplinary perspective, JAMS covers the broader marketing domain. These four journals provide sufficient representativeness and diversity to get a sense of the field and sharpen the search strategy. At the pre-scanning stage, we used the search term “social value” to collect prototypical articles that we examined in terms of suitability for our research objectives. This pre-scanning stage sharpened three search strategy aspects. First, we extended the keywords for the literature search with additional terminology used interchangeably by researchers in order to enhance the validity of our review, such as societal impact (e.g., George etal., 2016), social impact (e.g., Lemke etal., 2011), and social contribution (e.g., Lindorff etal., 2012). Second, we decided to conduct a full text search in the main search stage to cover potential key conceptualizations in studies that might not necessarily have social value as a focus, yet tangentially examine it. Third, because the keywords are often used in studies without a clear conceptualization, we confirmed our inclusion criteria to incorporate articles only if they provided a descriptive meaning or conceptual explanation of the search terms (in turn: articles are excluded if they make only a passing reference to our search terms). In the second step (searching), we conducted a full-text search using the Boolean search algorithm: “social value” OR “societal value” OR “social contribution” OR “societal contribution” OR “social impact” OR “societal impact” in the publishers’ databases of sampled journals and in the Business Source Complete database (EBSCO). This step yielded 5,065 articles. Our journal-driven search was open ended in terms of starting date (with the earliest included article dated 1895) and ended on July 15, 2020. We note that 2 Because our research objective is to examine scholarly output that is the primary input for researchers conducting studies around social value, we focused on peer-reviewed articles to guarantee certain quality (Hiebl, 2023; Tranfield etal., 2003). Consequently, we excluded MIT Sloan Management Review and Harvard Business Review from the initial FT50 journal search list because these two outlets do not follow a double-blind peer reviewing procedure and do not meet scientific publication standards. We acknowledge that practitioner outlets can contain discussions about the domain and influence thinking. However, impactful practitioner-oriented articles often find their way into peer-reviewed articles, either by being extended discussions of published articles or by being cited in peer reviewed articles. Specifically, one article (Porter & Kramer, 2006) from Harvard Business Review was included in the final sample via snowballing. Another article (Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014) from a non-peer reviewed journal (California Management Review) was also identified via snowballing and included in the final sample. 3 We systematically identified key outlets beyond the FT50 journal list at the intersection of business and society by selecting the highest rated journals according to Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2020 (category: GREEN & SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY or ETHICS; highest rated means that a journal performs better than 50% of journals in the same category rating – Q1 or Q2), Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2018 (category: ETHICS-CSR-MAN; highest rated means that a journal publishes at least original and well executed research – 3, 4 or 4*), and German Academic Association of Business Research (VHB) Academic Journal Ranking (JOURQUAL 3) 2015 (category: Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement; highest rated means that a journal is at least important and respected – B or A). In these three rankings within the relevant categories for our review, we identified only three journals that meet our criteria: Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, and Business Ethics Quarterly. Hence, we extended the FT50 journal search list with Business & Society, and Business Ethics Quarterly. 4 The 50 academic journals refer to the FT 50 journal list without MIT Sloan Management Review and the Harvard Business Review (minus two journals) but including Business & Society, and Business Ethics Quarterly (plus two journals outside the FT 50 journal list). 413 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology the number of years covered in our review (i.e., 125years) surpasses the mean time period of 31years covered by other systematic reviews in management without a search time start limit imposed and is close to the maximum 124years covered in other systematic reviews in management (see Table1 in Hiebl, 2023). In the third step (screening), we examined the relevance of articles for our review. Relevance applied if articles provided a conceptual description or definition of social value or the related social impact or social contribution concepts (i.e., articles included a descriptive meaning or explanation of the concepts). For example, Tavanti (2013, p. 697) explicitly defines the creation of social value as “alleviating poverty while promoting livelihood opportunities, women empowerment and community development.” We excluded articles that made only a passing reference to our search terms (e.g., social value mentioned only once in the context of firms’ institutional pressures in Berrone & Gomez-Mejia, 2009), did not provide a conceptual description or definition (e.g., Lisi, 2018 uses the term social impact in the context of a firm’s social performance measurement without providing a description of the concept) or used a conceptualization from a primary study already sampled without adding new insights (e.g., Stephan etal. (2015) refer to Zahra etal. (2009) when defining social impact of social entrepreneurship). To achieve replicability, we engaged a third researcher not part of the author team (i.e., an entrepreneurship scholar with experience in qualitative research methods and blind to the research goals) who examined a subset of the sample over multiple rounds and categorized articles as relevant or not. Afterward, the authors independently reviewed the remaining articles to finalize decisions regarding articles’ inclusion into the final sample; ambiguous candidates were discussed and agreed on jointly. Ambiguity resulted mainly from concept switching while providing an explanation for the focal term. For example, Nason etal. (2018) describe a firm’s creation of social value as the pursuit of social performance, explaining social performance rather than social value. In this case, the authors agreed to consider the social performance description for the review as it is linked directly to the social value concept. This third screening step yielded 266 articles. Finally, we identified in the screening stage studies referring to original conceptualizations from papers beyond the 50 journals on the initial search list. We used snowballing techniques to support tracing literature back to its roots (Fan etal., 2022) and to ensure that our review was comprehensive (Hiebl, 2023). For example, Bacq and Eddleston (2018) Fig. 1 Systematic Review Sample: Three-Stage Approach Stage 2: Search Full-text search in sampled peer-reviewed journals (FT50 journals, Business & Society and Business Ethics Quarterly) in Business Source Complete database and journal publishers’ databases (Boolean search algorithm: "social value" OR "societal value" OR "social contribution" OR "societal contribution" OR "social impact" OR "societal impact”). (n = 5,065) 288 articles included for the content analysis. Stage 3: Screen Examinationof initial sample to determine each article’s relevance. Selection of articles that provide an explicit definition or conceptualization of social value or the related social impact or social contribution concepts. (n = 266) Stage 1: Pre-scan Preparatory search in the Academy of Management Journal, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science via Google Scholar using the Boolean string “social value” to sharpen the search strategy. Articles excluded: 4,799 Identification of additional relevant articles through cross-referencing and backward search (snowballing techniques). (n = 288) Articles included: 22 Result 414 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol refer in their conceptualization of social impact to prior work conducted by Ebrahim and Rangan (2014). While the first article (Bacq & Eddleston, 2018 in Journal of Business Ethics) resulted from our initial keyword search, the second article (Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014 in California Management Review) was identified through cross-referencing and backward search. The snowballing technique (i.e., tracking down references cited in collected conceptual descriptions) yielded additional 22 articles mainly in psychology (e.g., Latane, 1981) and management (e.g., Wood, 2010), but also in economics, entrepreneurship, future studies, innovation management, international business, medicine and sociology. In sum, the final review sample comprises 288 articles drawn from 60 journals across 18 domains that we read in full to code and analyze conceptual descriptions or definitions of social value (see Table1). We note that our sample size (n = 288) is above the mean and median sample sizes (139 and 116, respectively) identified by Hiebl’s (2023) assessment of 196 systematic reviews published in the management domain, indicating that the review is sufficiently comprehensive.5 Extraction andAnalysis ofSocial Value Conceptualizations To critically analyze the properties of the social value conceptual descriptions and definitions across articles in our sample, we followed Torraco’s (2016, p. 420) principle for “deconstructing pieces of literature on the topic into their basic elements”. Hence, we organized the literature and extracted conceptual elements of social value descriptions and definitions through a systematic process of coding (Krippendorff, 1989; Weber, 1990) along the organizing framework (see Table2). To do so, all conceptual descriptions and definitions were listed in a data extraction form using context information (authors, journal, publication date, business domain, research method, research context and used theories). This form served as the basis for the development and refinement of our coding and categorization scheme, which are two central steps to ensure the quality of textual analysis (Weber, 1990). We note here that the collected articles did not always provide succinct definitions of social value. Instead, many articles provided conceptual descriptions ranging between ~ 50 to 2,400 characters. To enable a systematic process of coding and organizing the information extracted from our sample, we used descriptive coding (to summarize underlying assumptions and understandings) and invivo coding (to capture nuanced meanings) in a first step. Following Weber’s (1990) recommendation for creating a robust coding scheme, we defined a phrase as the basic unit of text to be coded. This coding unit enabled us to achieve high reliability and to capture the necessary conceptual context for further analysis. To account for transparency, stability, and accuracy requirements pertinent to a content analysis (Krippendorff, 1989), we reduced ambiguities through detailed definitions of the coding categories and rules (see Table2) aligned with our inquiry and organizing framework. To limit the potential bias inherent in the adopted qualitative approach and ensure reproducibility of the process (Weber, 1990), we iteratively reviewed subsets of the sample and agreed on categorizations. In case of disagreements, we discussed these for further clarification and refinement of the coding scheme. The sampled literature provided both broad conceptual descriptions in addition to specific definitions of social value; thus, the first coding step yielded a heterogeneous landscape of conceptual pieces. For example, the way value is understood in literature is very broad, e.g., relief of negative impact, perception of legitimacy, or normative approval, among many others. Hence, in a second step we opted for following an iterative axial coding approach to being able to critically analyze this heterogeneous landscape by seeking for similarities and differences among the many conceptual pieces and ultimately identifying emerging themes (i.e., social value radar). Overall, our inductive theorizing approach builds on best practices for iterative open and axial coding identified in Gioia etal. (2013) that facilitate the iteration between original conceptualizations of social value (scholars being the informants) and theoretical interpretations. Development ofaPolythetic Typology ofSocial Value Building on the content analytical results of our study, we inductively constructed a typology of social value by ordering social value definitions along their conceptual perspectives (i.e., social value radar) into a minimum number of classes that we label “social value approaches”. Usually, such a classification scheme follows a monothetic logic, meaning that each class is characterized by a unique set of features (Bailey, 1973, 1994). In our study, this would imply that all conceptualizations of social value within an approach share exactly the same combination of conceptual properties. However, because of the heterogeneity of conceptualizations and the diversity of conceptual perspectives we identified in our content analysis, a monothetic logic would have resulted in a classification scheme consisting of many different yet interrelated approaches, increasing complexity. Put 5 Indeed, Hiebl (2023) indicates that only 25% of reviews in the Academy of Management Annals examine more than 191 articles, indicating that our review is relatively speaking comprehensive (i.e., 288 articles). 421 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology etal., 2016). This approach to social value emerges from research in marketing, psychology, management, and economics. From a theoretical standpoint, the individualistic approach to social value is related to sociological theories (e.g., Keyes, 1998), neoclassical economic theories (e.g., Goodland & Ledec, 1987) and neoliberalism (e.g., Larner, 2003). Research might assume that individuals are unique, self-reliant, and self-interest-maximizing consumers (i.e., individuals judge utility as a trade-off between personal costs and benefits), and therefore social value is determined by consumer choices more so than firms’ actions. Because individuals and their perception of firms’ actions are in the foreground of the individualistic approach, firms’ intentionality to create social value is secondary. Moreover, this approach implies that everyone and everything is potentially affected by the created value; however, firms cannot force or assume a beneficial perception. In other words, social value is the inevitable concomitant effect of business making that is regulated by the market and its participants (consumers). Applying the individualistic approach to social value in future research is built on the understanding that reality is the result of perceptions and (inter)actions of people embedded in an institutional and natural environment; that is, scholars recognize the existence of multiple realities. For this reason, researchers’ assumptions about knowledge build on attributed meanings, narratives, and opinions, enabling the study of specific social realities (Saunders etal., 2019). These subjectivist onto-epistemological lenses determine either a critical realist or an interpretivist research philosophy to explain the underlying assumptions and structures of multiple observable realities and contexts. Scholars taking this approach to social value in research rely on qualitative methods of inquiry and analysis as well as in-depth investigations and inductive approaches to theory development. Stakeholder Approach toSocial Value In the stakeholder approach, social value refers to the benefit for specific target groups that results from a targeted response or intervention to their common needs and problems (see Fig.6). This approach to social value is based on the conceptual assumption that specific stakeholder groups have common demands (Crilly etal., 2012) and that these demands can be fulfilled through firms’ targeted actions (Saebi etal., 2019). This approach implies that social value is mainly created for stakeholder groups characterized by an in need condition and that these stakeholders in need are able to determine worthiness as a function of value creators’ (i.e., firms) responses to their demands. Therefore, research based on this approach focuses on disadvantaged or marginalized segments of society. Accordingly, demands are assumed to be universally known and acknowledged by value creators (Brieger etal., 2019), referring to the provision of basic services (e.g., shelter, health care, sanitation) or empowerment to participate in everyday life (e.g., education, economic inclusion, fair working conditions). Within this approach, value creators can anticipate how stakeholder groups will perceive benefits by addressing these demands. Therefore, the driving factor determining Note. Conceptual perspectives relevant to the prototypical individualistic approach are highlighted. Value as worthiness for the individual Value as guiding and judging principle Value as worthiness for the common Individualistic approach Value Illustratoryconceptual descriptions from across business domains: Marketing “[T]hat standard of living is mainly a function of consumption, and it is reduced by factors such as pollution, global conflict, material sacrifice for environment, and charitable aid to consumers ( … ) the higher the level of consumption one has, the higher is the level of well-being attained” (Huang & Rust, 2011, p. 45). Psychology “Social value ( … ) Individuals may engage in achievement behavior to be a productive citizen (social welfare goal), to bring pride and honor to the family (social solidarity goal), or to gain the approval or respect of peers” (DeShon& Gillespie, 2005, p. 1109). Accounting/ Economics “( … ) the value of a social good may be priced at what a beneficiary or consumer would be willing to pay for it ( … )” (Nicholls, 2009, p. 758). Management “Further, in addition to the functional value of an innovation, brands offer symbolic or social value such as prestige and recognition –or getting in contact and building relationships with others. The value embedded in the perceived meaning of a brand contributes to the overall benefit provided by the innovation and thereby supports the adoption of new products” (Fülleret al., 2013, p. 1197). Social value is the effectiveness of the functioning of an individual within the system of people, institutions and natural environment. INDIVIDUALISTIC APPROACH Fig. 5 Social Value Typology: Individualistic Approach 422 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol the value capturer’s worthiness perception is not the beneficiaries’ individual judgment of benefit but the effectiveness of firms’ actions (Battilana etal., 2014) addressing aggregated stakeholder preferences. In our review sample, this approach is observed in management, business ethics, and entrepreneurship domains. The stakeholder approach to social value is grounded mainly in stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1994) but also builds on theories of change (Brest, 2010) and of social bricolage (Di Domenico etal., 2010), enabling a conceptually viable combination of business and doing good for targeted stakeholders. Similar to the individualistic approach, scholars taking the stakeholder approach to social value recognize the existence of multiple realities as these are the result of perceptions and (inter)actions of social actors. Researchers’ assumptions about knowledge within this approach builds on attributed meanings and narratives, enabling the investigation of different stakeholder realities (Saunders etal., 2019). These subjectivist onto-epistemological lenses and understandings of social value point to an interpretivist research philosophy to investigate underlying structures of multiple observable realities in terms of aggregated preferences of stakeholder groups and value creators’ responses. Scholars taking the stakeholder approach to social value in research rely on qualitative or quantitative methods of analysis and inductive and abductive approaches to theory development. Virtuous Approach toSocial Value In the virtuous approach, social value refers to the benefit for the common or the individual generated out of a sense of moral obligation (see Fig.7). This approach to social value is based on firms’ sense of moral obligation as necessary and sufficient condition for creating benefits for individuals, stakeholder groups, or the comprehensive system (people, civil societal institutions, and natural environment). Moral obligation captures the commitment to virtuous principles such as harmony, solidarity or generosity (Feldman & March, 1981; Zahra etal., 2014), leading firms to maximize total payoffs to self and others. The worthiness judgment in this approach is mainly determined by the value creators’ sense of moral obligation in terms of their anticipation of wider benefits for society or the congruence of the value system with universal moral principles. The conceptualization of social value according to the virtuous approach builds on a traditional business ethics understanding as firms’ sense of responsibility or duty is based on the evaluation of right or wrong of value creators’ actions (Weiss, 2022). In our sample, this approach is mainly present in the management literature but also identified in other business scholarship domains. The virtuous approach can be linked to deontological ethics and the principles of Kantianism, in which any action must respect the moral law (Micewski & Troy, 2007) but also to agency and institutional theories. The ethical framing is important to complement the traditional conceptualization of business making in which the only obligation of firms is Note. Conceptual perspectives relevant to the prototypical stakeholder approach are highlighted. Value as worthiness for the individual Value as guiding and judging principle Value as worthiness for the common Stakeholder approach Value Illustratory conceptual descriptions from across business domains: Management “A social benefit is a solution to a social problem that accrues to ( … ) a targeted segment of the population” (Miller et al., 2012, p. 618). Business ethics “The social impact on local populations ( … ) shows a wide variety of measures, including education, health care, water quality, employment, business income generation, and harder-to-define terms such as empowerment, quality of life, and reduced exploitation” (Kolket al., 2014, p. 358). “( … ) address social and environmental issues—to transform the quality of life of the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, and even nonhuman stakeholders ( … )” (Martí, 2018, p. 967). Entrepreneurship “Common across all definitions of social entrepreneurship is the fact that the underlying drive for social entrepreneurship is to create social value ( … ) central driver for social entrepreneurship is the social problem being addressed, and the particular organizational form a social enterprise takes should be a decision based on which format would most effectively mobilize the resources needed to address that problem” (Austin et al., 2006, p. 2). Social value is the benefit for specific target groups that results from a targeted response or intervention to their common needs and problems. STAKEHOLDER APPROACH Fig. 6 Social Value Typology: Stakeholder Approach 423 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology to increase profits (Friedman, 1970). Scholars adopting the virtuous approach to social value in future research assume the existence of a single reality that is independent of how they think of it (universalism of moral law) and external to them. However, researchers’ stance on knowledge and data quality builds on both objectivist and subjectivist assumptions (Saunders etal., 2019) to be able to holistically understand the complexity of moral obligation in business (i.e., complementing observable phenomena with attributed meanings of value capturers). These dual onto-epistemological lenses enable researchers to adopt a positivist or interpretivist research philosophy that, in turn, makes it possible to rely on qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis and deductive or inductive approaches to theory development. Normative Approach toSocial Value In the normative approach, social value refers to the moral imperative or collectively-agreed belief regulating selfishness and enabling people, institutions, and natural environment living together (see Fig.8). This approach to social value is based on the conceptual assumption that value is not a worthiness but a judging principle that governs decisions and actions of individuals and, consequently, of social systems. Such a judging principle enables individuals, social groups, institutions, and the natural environment to live together and maintain the civil order. Within this approach, the beneficiaries are part of a system with a characteristic ethos (Solinger etal., 2020) consisting of shared and accepted codes of behavior. Two major systems with a characteristic ethos exist in the normative approach: a contextual system and a universal system. The ethos in a contextual system (contextual normative approach) builds on collectively agreed upon, established and accepted beliefs or preferences specific to a certain cohesive social group (e.g., firm, religion or country) that provides a rationale towards judging “what is accepted or good” in that group (Bourne & Jenkins, 2013; Pavett & Morris, 1995). This understanding is rooted in the meaning of social as a system of interacting humans. In contrast, the ethos in a universal system (universal normative approach) is given by universal moral criteria and norms that promote ethical principles and human virtues in order to regulate human selfishness and the functioning of the universal social system (Kraatz etal., 2020; Weber, 1993). Such a universal ethos system (rooted in moral) can be shared, fostered, and accepted across different social groups. The conceptualization of social value according to the normative approach (contextual and universal) is directed more toward the behavior of individuals, the norms guiding that behavior, and the legitimacy because of the congruence of norms between individuals and the larger system, and less toward the outcome (created benefit) of such behavior. The normative approach is based on bounded moral rationality and integrative social contracts theory (Donaldson & Dunfee, 1994), and can be linked in business to agency, legitimacy, and institutional theoretical lenses as well as to institutional logics and pluralism (Battilana etal., 2014; Dunn & Jones, 2010; Ocasio etal., 2016). This approach to social value is a necessary complement to the Note. Conceptual perspectives relevant to the prototypical virtuous approach are highlighted. Value as worthiness for the individual Value as guiding and judging principle Value as worthiness for the common Virtuous approach Value Illustratory conceptual descriptions from across business domains: Management “[The] creation of social value may require distinct types of narratives that resonate with basic notions of equity and social justice” (Dacin et al., 2011, p. 1209). “Second, the concept of social values can help us understand where opportunities for social innovation come from (… ) given existing, but subjective, shared ethical premises, the level of new social value is determined by the novelty and appropriateness of a contribution to human and social life. From this view, opportunities for social innovation could be seen as emanating from imperfections in reconciling the values at higher and lower hierarchical levels ( … ) social value is determined by the degree of novelty and appropriateness of a social innovation’s contribution to human and social life” (Van der Have & Rubalcaba, 2016, p. 1933). Entrepreneurship “The idea of having social impact and being mindful about ethics around growth made many entrepreneurs in this study celebrate the concept of the B corporation, a business model in which an organization benefits society as well as shareholders—a combination of the social responsibility and market frames” (Värlander et al., 2020, p. 9). “The culture and ethos of the social enterprise are based on principles of voluntarism, ethical behaviour and a mission with a social cause ( … ) Social and community enterprises aim to create social value rather than personal wealth for the leader-manager. Because they have valued social ends, such enterprises have been able to attract grant aid to pump-prime their activity” (Chell, 2007, pp. 11, 17). Social value is the benefit for the common or the individual generated out of a sense of moral obligation. VIRTUOUS APPROACH Fig. 7 Social Value Typology: Virtuous Approach 424 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol virtuous approach, because one meaningful path to foster the moral obligation of firms (virtuous approach) is a set of contextualized or universal behavioral codes (normative approach) determining the judging principles within a social system. Adopting the normative approach to social value in future research requires scholars to recognize that the world can be interpreted in very different ways (i.e., individuals and their individual behavior shape multiple realities). Similar to the virtuous approach, the epistemology of scholars taking the normative approach to social value is related to both objectivist and subjectivist assumptions (Saunders etal., 2019) in investigating individuals’ behavior and their functioning in organizations (i.e., social actors’ attributed meanings to behavioral imperatives and the effect on the firms creating value). This onto-epistemological combination of objectivist and subjectivist stances enables researchers to adopt an interpretivist or a pragmatist research philosophy that, in turn, makes it possible to rely on mixed methods and deductive or inductive approaches to theory development. Within this approach, scholars use narrative inquiry, action research, or ethnography as pragmatist research strategies (Saunders etal., 2019). The typology of social value integrates the identified theoretical perspectives on the focal concept into five overarching approaches. While the first four approaches of social value build on the notion of value as something having or being worth, the normative approach engenders social value as a principle that guides behavior. These five approaches represent different perspectives on the social value concept that expand the understanding of ethics beyond the traditional normative or virtuous dimensions. Because each approach is a unique configuration of the critical conceptual attributes of social value (i.e., configurations of the social value radar), the theoretical foundations differ from approach to approach, indicating different ontological and epistemological positions. In turn, these approach-specific onto-epistemological lenses determine the suitability and appropriateness of specific research philosophies and strategies for future investigations (see Table3). In managerial practice, these five approaches (despite being conceptually mutually exclusive) might be co-occurring leading to contradictory or misaligned strategies. Connecting theSocial Value Typology toManagerial Practice Russel Reynolds Associates (leading executive search company) reports the importance and challenging character of social value in firms, arguing that “while social value may start as a broad term, it is incumbent on every organization to define specifically what it means for its strategy and multiple stakeholders” (Cooper & Kingston, 2019, p. 2). Put differently, each approach to understanding and managing social value from our typology will have a different degree of fit for firms. Our typology argues for the contingent character of social value and therefore has implications for practitioners contemplating to integrate social value into their business strategies and mainstream practices, for example, through a strategic orientation founded on social value creation (de Note. Conceptual perspectives relevant to the prototypical normative approach are highlighted. Value as worthiness for the individual Value as guiding and judging principle Value as worthiness for the common Normative approach Value Illustratory conceptual descriptions from across business domains: Management/ Business ethics “( … ) decision makers should act with fairness, equity, and impartiality ( … ) society expects business organizations to behave in a way consistent with social values. This refers to moral standards above and beyond the rule of law” (Angelidis & Ibrahim, 2004, p. 120). Organizational behavior “There is therefore a distinction between social values as an aggregation of personal values, located at the level of the individual, and social values derived from precedence, power and influence, located at the level of the collective organization. Both the social psychologists’ and the social theorists’ representations of social values are accommodated in the four forms of organizational values, although the lines of distinction may not always be that clear. Attributed values are collectively agreed upon social structures, not necessarily shared, but established and accepted. Espoused values are also collective social structures onto which carry a degree of power and influence and, while individual executives may privately disagree, collective responsibility means they are accepted as appropriate for the organization as a whole. Aspirational values are those that some individuals and groups believe to be desirable for the organization and as such, they are shared personal cognitive structures“ (Bourne & Jenkins, 2013, p. 504). Psychology “( … ) feelings of moral obligation to try to protect the collective welfare ( … ) is expressed in such values as altruism, benevolence, kindness, or love ( … )” (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987, pp. 552, 559). Social value is the moral imperative or collectively-agreed belief regulating selfishness and enabling people, institutions, and natural environment living together. NORMATIVE APPROACH Fig. 8 Social Value Typology: Normative Approach 425 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology Table 3 Social Value Typology: Social Value Approaches and their Implications for Research Approach Maximizing Individualistic Stakeholder Virtuous Normative Definition Social value is the maximized benefit for the comprehensive system consisting of people, institutions, and the natural environment Social value is the effectiveness of the functioning of an individual within the system of people, institutions and natural environment Social value is the benefit for specific target groups that results from a targeted response to their common needs and problems Social value is the benefit for the common or the individual generated out of a sense of moral obligation Social value is the moral imperative or collectively-agreed belief regulating selfishness and enabling people, institutions, and natural environment living together Key conceptual assumption Aggregated preferences of homogeneous individuals represent the humanity’s desire (e.g., enhancement of everyone’s well-being and welfare or the common good) Preferences, needs and choices are individual and therefore desirability and worthiness are also to be understood at individual level Specific stakeholder groups have common demands that can be fulfilled through firms’ targeted actions. Stakeholders are able to determine worthiness as a function of value creators’ responses to these demands Firms’ sense of responsibility or duty based on the evaluation of rightness or wrongness of firm’ s actions is necessary and sufficient condition to do good Values are judging principles that govern decisions and actions of individuals and, consequently, of social systems enabling to live together and maintain the civil order Illustratory definition “[The] impact on society concerns the value created or social change that a given activity has on its beneficiaries and society at large” (Maas & Liket, 2011, p. 446) “Social value ( …) Individuals may engage in achievement behavior to be a productive citizen (social welfare goal), to bring pride and honor to the family (social solidarity goal), or to gain the approval or respect of peers” (DeShon & Gillespie, 2005, p. 1109) “( …) address social and environmental issues—to transform the quality of life of the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, and even nonhuman stakeholders ( …)” (Martí, 2018, p. 967) “[The] creation of social value may require distinct types of narratives that resonate with basic notions of equity and social justice” (Dacin etal., 2011, p. 1209) “( …) decision makers should act with fairness, equity, and impartiality ( …) society expects business organizations to behave in a way consistent with social values. This refers to moral standards above and beyond the rule of law” (Angelidis & Ibrahim, 2004, p. 120) Theoretical foundation Utilitarianism (Mill, 1895), welfare economics (e.g., Gowdy, 2005), social theory of value (J. M. Clark, 1915), consequentialist ethics (e.g., Micewski & Troy, 2007) Sociological theories (e.g., Keyes, 1998), neoclassical economic theories (e.g., Goodland & Ledec, 1987), concept of neoliberalism (e.g., Larner, 2003) Stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1994), theory of change (Brest, 2010), theory of social bricolage (Di Domenico etal., 2010) Deontological ethics, principles of Kantianism (Micewski & Troy, 2007), agency theory, institutional theory Bounded moral rationality, integrative social contracts theory (Donaldson & Dunfee, 1994), institutional logics and pluralism (Battilana etal., 2014; Dunn & Jones, 2010; Ocasio etal., 2016), agency, legitimacy, and institutional theories Ontology One true reality (objectivism) Multiple realities (subjectivism) Multiple realities (subjectivism) One true reality (objectivism) Multiple realities (subjectivism) Epistemology Facts/ numbers (objectivism) Opinions (subjectivism) Opinions (subjectivism) Facts/ numbers/ opinions (objectivism/subjectivism) Facts/ numbers/ opinions (objectivism/subjectivism) Philosophy and research approach Positivism using deductive approaches and quantitative methods Critical realism/ interpretivism using inductive approaches and qualitative methods Interpretivism using abductive/ inductive approaches and quantitative/ qualitative methods Positivism/ interpretivism using deductive/ inductive approaches and quantitative/ qualitative methods Pragmatism/ interpretivism using deductive/ inductive approaches and mixed methods 426 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol la Cruz Jara etal. 2024). We discuss such implications (see Table4) for three critical managerial concerns: design of value offerings (Sjödin etal., 2020), selection of accountability standard guiding social value creation (Ayuso etal., 2016), and contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (George etal., 2016). The maximizing approach to social value is based on the worthiness for the common conceptualization of value and therefore is suitable for firms developing products or services for well-known markets or homogeneous markets with consumers sharing similar preferences. A critical success factor for managers is the integration of the social value understanding into the firm’s strategic orientation, enabling social value creation beyond customer and financial value creation. To monitor and steer the firm’s social value creation, the measurement approach should build mainly on its operational data (e.g., indicators of product safety, usage of sustainable technologies). Firms adopting the maximizing approach can benefit from comprehensive accountability standards as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Standards (SASB) or the Integrated Reporting Framework from the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). This approach to social value is suitable for contributing to SDGs targeting benefits for the common, such as affordable energy (SDG 7) or economic growth (SDG 8). The individualistic approach with the worthiness for the individual conceptualization is adequate for firms developing products or services for heterogeneous or unknown markets. Within this approach, critical success factors are the strengthening of the customer focus through market intelligence and the integration of customers into product or service development activities (e.g., co-creation). Firms adopting the individualistic approach to social value should rely on comprehensive accountability standards (similar to the maximizing approach) and value capturer’s data (e.g., Table 4 Social Value Typology: Social Value Approaches and their Implications for Practice Approach Maximizing Individualistic Stakeholder Virtuous Normative Design of value offering Suitable context of application Development of products/ services for well-known markets or for homogeneous markets with consumers sharing similar preferences Development of products/ services for unknown markets or for heterogeneous markets Dedicated development of products or services for specific stakeholder groups with specific needs or problems Development of highly innovative products/ services (breakthrough innovations) Every value offering endeavor in a firm that is strongly guided by an ethos (e.g., ethical codes) of the organization Success factor (exemplary) Integration of social value understanding in firm’s strategic orientation Strengthening of the customer focus through market intelligence and integration of customers into product or service development processes Dedicated involvement of stakeholders in product or service development processes (e.g., co-creation) Explicit definition of firms’ moral obligation and implementation through management systems Integration of behavioral criteria and norms in firm’s culture and institutional practices Measurement of social value Firm-centric approach using value creator’s operational data Human-centric approach using value capturer’s data Human-centric approach using value capturer’s data Firm-centric approach using value creator’s operational data Firm-centric approach using value creator’s operational data Accountability standard (exemplary) GRI, SASB Standards, Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRC) GRI, SASB Standards, Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRC) ISO 14001, Carbon Disclosure Project ISO 26000, SA 8000, B Lab certification UN GC, OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises Sustainable Development Goal (exemplary) SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) SDG 3 (good health and wellbeing), SDG 12 (responsible consumption, production) SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) All SDGs SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals) 427 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology customer feedback) to measure and steer social value creation. The individualistic approach is suitable for contributing to SDGs targeting benefits for the individual, such as good health and well-being (SDG 3) and responsible consumption (SDG 12). The stakeholder approach to social value is suitable for firms with a dedicated value offering for specific stakeholder groups (e.g., provision of basic needs or resolution of known stakeholder problems). Within this approach, the explicit involvement of stakeholders in product or service development processes (e.g.,throughco-creation activities) represents a critical success factor. Similar to the individualistic approach, the measurement of social value should rely on value capturer’s data (e.g., stakeholder’s survey on the perception of benefit). Firms adopting the stakeholder approach pursue information on specific stakeholder needs and therefore will benefit from specialized accountability standards aligned with specific stakeholder needs, such as ISO 14001 or the Carbon Disclosure Project. This approach is suitable for contributing to SDGs aligned with specific target groups, such as no poverty (SDG 1) or sanitation (SDG 6). The virtuous approach to social value is based on the premise that benefit for the common or the individual can be created out of a firms’ moral obligation. In other words, the moral obligation of maximizing payoffs for the firm and all value capturers is necessary to generate worthiness. Therefore, this approach is adequate for firms developing highly innovative products or services (breakthrough innovations), as they are operating in an environment (e.g., market, technology, customer perceptions) in which the worthiness for the common or the individual is uncertain. A critical success factor for managers adopting this approach is the explicit definition of the firm’s moral obligation and its implementation through the management system. To monitor social value creation, the measurement approach should build on firm’s operational data (e.g., number of bluesign® partners). Firms adopting the virtuous approach will benefit from accountability standards, such as B Lab certification, ISO 26000 or SA8000, to strengthen their moral obligation. This approach to social value is suitable for contributing to all SDGs because these are a call for action based on the moral obligation of all actors involved. In contrast with the first four approaches that build on the worthiness concept, the normative approach is based on the understanding of social value as guiding and judging principle for making business. Therefore, the normative approach is suitable for every value offering endeavor in a firm that is strongly guided by an ethos (e.g., ethical codes) of the organization. Within this approach, a critical success factor is the definition and integration of specific behavioral criteria and norms in firm’s culture (e.g., leadership) and institutional practices (e.g., code of conduct). Similar to the maximizing and virtuous approaches, the measurement of social value should rely on firms’ operational data (e.g., number of trainings conducted with managers to transform leadership style). Firms adopting the (universal) normative approach can benefit from accountability standards that provide (ethical) guidelines for conducting business, such as the United Nations Global Compact (UN GC) or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines for multinational enterprises. This approach to social value is adequate for contributing to SDGs that require a collaboration between heterogeneous partners, such as industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9) or global partnerships (SDG 17). The normative approach aims to provide a common ethos for firms’ decision-makers and processes, facilitating cooperation and collaboration between actors from different industries, countries, or cultures. Our typology offers a foundational transparency and initial guidance for managerial practice aiming to integrate social value in business strategy and mainstream practices. However, we acknowledge that firms might need more than one approach to effectively contribute to society according to the context of application. Future Research andLimitations Future Research In the course of consolidating literature and developing a typology of social value, we identified salient future research priorities consisting of approach-specific and overarching research questions. In doing so, our intention was not to be exhaustive, but rather to address critical paths that appear particularly promising for scholars. With respect to the maximizing approach, exploring the contingent character of the appropriateness concept (e.g., cultural context, individual experiences) is necessary. In addition, we encourage future research to investigate the conditions under which firms might create a simultaneous win–win situation for people, civil societal institutions, and the natural environment (i.e., benefit for the universal beneficiary). Regarding the individualistic approach, understanding the firm intention–customer perception gap is critical to enhance the controllability and effectiveness of firms’ social value creation efforts. Moreover, it is critical to shed light on how individuals in different contexts (e.g., profession, culture, education) manage the balance between giving and taking in the social system to achieve an individual well-being and how this individual well-being interacts with the functioning of other individuals. 428 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol With regard to the stakeholder approach, we encourage researchers to investigate comprehensively how people in need want to live. Here, it is important not only to capture individual and aggregated preferences of people in need but also to juxtapose these with the perspectives of other critical actors (e.g., governmental entities, normative institutions, for-profit firms). Additional important questions could arise from a focus on the kind of relationships needed between firms and stakeholders to effectively implement the stakeholder approach (e.g., empowerment, co-creation, consumption). Moreover, future research should examine how the inneed condition can be determined objectively (e.g., indicators of living conditions, such as income, criticality of needs for human life). With regard to the virtuous approach, future research might focus on exploring how decision-makers in firms understand and manage their moral obligation and how this understanding is shaped by firm-contextual conditions (e.g., industry sector, country culture) and evolves over time. Future research should also understand how a sense of moral obligation develops in firms at different levels of analysis (i.e., individuals, teams, organizations). Finally, for the normative approach, it is important to investigate how individuals embedded in different contexts cope with and manage contradictory or complementary ethos blended in the larger social system (e.g., firm ethos, religion and moral). Additionally, we recommend researchers to explore how a novel institutional logic (Battilana etal., 2014; Dunn & Jones, 2010; Ocasio etal., 2016) might explain the integration of a moral imperative into the dominant economic imperative in for-profit firms’ mainstream or core business. Investigating how firms can support the development of a moral imperative at the consumer level through their products or services is also an important avenue for future research. From an overarching perspective on the typology of social value, we encourage researchers to shed light on the temporal dimension of social value (social value is a process that unfolds over a longer period of time) and firms’ anticipatory intelligence (e.g., strategic foresight) to better understand how organizations can anticipate and manage (positive and negative) consequences of firms’ actions, products and services and thus be able to create social value. It is also necessary to understand how firm-external stimuli (e.g., soft laws, hard laws, targeted interventions) can positively influence the development of a social value understanding in firms that leads to the design or adaptation of the business model toward social value creation. Finally, future research should also analyze how the concept of social value can be aligned with the principles of the free market economic system to avoid trade-off conceptualizations. Such theoretical work can build on the integrative social contracts theory (Donaldson & Dunfee, 1994) and the theory of paradox (Smith & Lewis, 2011) but also on insights from sociology. In general, because the current understanding of social value in business has mainly emerged from management and economics literature, it is important that future research increasingly draws on sociology to strengthen the conceptual focus on humans and their interaction in structured social systems. We argue that it is necessary to start thinking of social value not as the counterpart to economic value but as one concept in which social and economic principles go hand in hand and value represents a relational concept based on mutuality in a stakeholder system (Freeman, 2020). Limitations Although this integrative review strives to be rigorous and comprehensive, our review does not aim or claim to be exhaustive. First, it does not include certain types of publications. Specifically, we have not included books in our review, as our goal was to examine scholarly output that is the primary input for researchers conducting studies on topics related to social value. Yet, focusing on peer-reviewed articles also provides a certain quality assurance (Hiebl, 2023; Tranfield etal., 2003). We acknowledge that books on social value-related topics (e.g., Bhattacharya etal., 2011; Klein, 2022) contain rich discussions about the domain and influence thinking. However, impactful books often find their way into peer-reviewed articles, either by being extended discussions of published articles or by being cited in articles. Second, our review focuses on assessing social value within the business scholarship landscape. While other scholarly domains address social value (e.g., public administration), we have not systematically searched those domains, as our focus was on synthesizing business scholarship. Through citation tracing, however, we were able to include a set of conceptualizations of social value from medicine, psychology and sociology, which had found their way into the business literature. Future research might focus specifically on linking business scholarship with other domains, perhaps through bibliometric literature reviews. Third, we acknowledge that although no a priori reasons were identified to expect that critical publications have been omitted, it is possible that not all relevant articles were identified despite following a systematic procedure to sharpen our search keywords in the pre-scanning stage of the sampling approach. Finally, the present literature review is limited by general drawbacks inherent in qualitative content analysis in which researchers’ perceptions, experiences, and expertise influence the analysis to some extent. To ensure transparency we provide additional details in the Supplementary Material available online. In addition, we are aware that our research priorities address only selected research questions. While not exhaustive, our research priorities address both the breadth 429 Social Value in Business: An Integrative Review and Typology and depth of future social value research, providing guidance for researchers seeking to advance this emerging field. Concluding Remarks Social value is usually portrayed as a collective benefit to the wider society. However, the answer to the question of what benefit is or what exactly is meant by society often remains vague. Our integrative review provides a critical analysis and synthesis (Torraco, 2016) of the domain and identifies strengths, weaknesses, and omissions of the surveyed literature. First, our critical analysis identified a heterogeneity of perspectives on social value. While this is in itself not surprising, it is a strength of the literature as it enabled business scholars to address a variety of research questions related to social value (e.g., scholars drawing on insights from sociology or medicine to explore research questions in the management domain). Our synthesis of the literature (i.e., the social value typology) has formalized the heterogeneous perspectives on social value and opens up new avenues for research. Second, the same heterogeneity leads to conceptual inconsistencies and ambiguities in terminology within and across business domains, making it challenging to establish clear consensus (e.g., who is the beneficiary of created social value and why). Hence, the reviewed body of knowledge emerged as being fragmented, making it difficult for scholars to navigate through this large literature with varying perspectives and approaches. Thus, the identified heterogeneity is also a weakness of the reviewed literature, hindering a cohesive scholarly progression. In addition, this heterogeneity of perspectives suggests that managerial practice does not have adequate guidance on how to understand and manage social value creation in firms, as reflected in the proliferation of managerial instruments supporting social value creation (e.g., GRI, SA8000 Standard) or the more than 1,000 social value indicators (Beer & Micheli, 2018). Our typology addresses this weakness by offering a comprehensive and structured conceptualization of the social value domain. Moreover, our typology offers direction to managerial practice, responding to the new organizational imperative of creating social value along with customer and financial value. Third, our critical analysis indicated a lack of consideration of an important perspective: time. In other words, conceptual descriptions and definitions of social value across business domains did not systematically and explicitly indicate how temporal dynamics are integrated. This is an important omission, as creating and capturing social value is a process that unfolds over a longer period affecting people, institutions (Reinecke & Lawrence, 2023), and the natural environment with varying intensity. However, this temporal dimension is not sufficiently represented in the reviewed literature and thus represents a promising avenue for future research. In conclusion, researchers and practitioners need to be aware of and have clarity on the multiple perspectives of the social value concept, its dynamic and contingent character linked to contextual boundaries, and the different assumptions that determine their understanding. We do not envision a closed social value community but hope to sensitize the various research streams across business domains to the multiple facets of the social value concept and to encourage and welcome dialogue. Appendix1 Integrative Literature Review Best Practices: Overview and Correspondence with Present Study. 430 M.F.de la Cruz Jara, J.Spanjol Steps Recommended in Integrative Literature Reviews (what) Objectives for Recommended Steps (why) Complementary Best Practices (how) Correspondence with Methodological Choices in our Review Elsbach and Knippenberg (2020) Torraco (2016) Elsbach and Knippenberg (2020) / Torraco (2016) Step 1: Identify the space for the review. “Identifying the ‘space’ for an impactful integrative review involves both justifying the review and identifying the boundary conditions of the review.” (p. 1282) Step 1: Establish the need, goal and purposes of the review. “Is there a need for the integrative literature review? … Will the review article make a significant, valueadded contribution to new thinking in the field?” (p. 424) Clarifying the “reasons for performing a review, that is, the potential for a value-added outcome of the review” and defining “the logic and process for selecting literature to be included in the review.” (Elsbach & Knippenberg, 2020, p. 1282) Hiebl (2023): Sample selection Tranfield etal. (2003): Sample selection, review guidelines Justification for reviewing the social value concept in business literature provided (pp. 1–2). Sample selection following a threestep approach (pre-scan, search and screen) (pp. 9–13). Step 2: Conduct a critical analysis of the literature. “Critical analysis involves careful examination and critique of the extant literature, with an eye toward identifying themes, patterns, relationships, and gaps in understanding.” (p. 1284) Step 2: Conduct a critical analysis of the literature. “Critical analysis of literature involves carefully examining the main ideas and arguments presented in the literature through a critical lens… Critical analysis involves deconstructing pieces of literature on the topic into their basic elements.” (pp. 419–420) Critical analysis “enables the author to conceptually reconstruct the topic for a clearer, more complete, and up-to-date conception of the topic.” (Torraco, 2016, p. 420) Gioia etal. (2013): Iterative coding (open and axial coding) for inductive theorizing Krippendorff (1989), Weber (1990): Content analysis Conceptual reconstruction through content analysis of conceptual descriptions of “social value” across articles (pp. 14–15). Clearer and more complete conception of “social value” along four dimensions (pp. 17–25). Synthesis and visualization of patterns through “Social Value Radar” (Fig.2). Step 3: Synthesize the literature. “Creative synthesis…involves integrating existing frameworks with insights gained from the critical analysis to formulate a new perspective regarding the topic.” (p. 1284) Step 3: Synthesize the literature. “Synthesis integrates existing ideas with new ideas to create a new formulation of the topic. …Using the insights acquired from a careful and critical analysis of the literature, the author recasts, combines, reorganizes, and integrates concepts and perspectives on the topic to create new theoretical formulations and ways of thinking about the topic.” (Torraco, 2016, p. 420) “[T]he result of a comprehensive synthesis of literature is that new knowledge or perspective is created despite the fact that the review summarizes previous research.” (Torraco, 2016, p. 421) Bailey (1994), McKelvey (1982): Typology development Synthesis and differentiation of the literature resulted in a new perspective of the social value concept in form of the “Social Value Typology” (Figs.3–8). Synthesis and differentiation built on the visualization (“Social Value Radar”) that emerged from the critical analysis of the literature (pp. 25–35).