University Professor Michael E. Porter

BOSTON - Michael E. Porter, Harvard's Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, based at Harvard Business School, and Mark R. Kramer, managing director of the nonprofit consulting firm FSG Social Impact Advisors, are the first-place winners of the 2006 McKinsey Award for their Harvard Business Review (www.hbr.org) article "Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility.” Gary Hamel, a visiting professor at London Business School, is the second-place winner for “The Why, What, and How of Management Innovation.”

Since 1959, the awards have recognized the two most significant articles published each year in Harvard Business Review. They are sponsored by McKinsey & Company, the management consulting firm. This marks the sixth time Porter has won the award.

In their article, published in December 2006, Porter and Kramer propose a new way to view the relationship between business and society that allows companies to make valuable contributions to social welfare without sacrificing corporate success. They write, “If corporations were to analyze their prospects for social responsibility using the same frameworks that guide their core business choices, they would discover that CSR can be much more than a cost, a constraint, or a charitable deed—it can be a source of opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage.”

The articles are available free of charge through April 24 at
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/index.jsp

The 2006 winners will be honored at a May 1 awards dinner in Boston that will feature keynote remarks by special guest Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman and chief executive officer of General Electric. Immelt will join the winning authors, as well as Michael J. Critelli, chairman and chief executive officer of Pitney Bowes and a 2006 McKinsey judge, in a panel discussion on corporate social responsibility and the future of competitive advantage. Thomas A. Stewart, editor of Harvard Business Review, and Ian E.L. Davis, managing director of McKinsey & Company, will host the dinner.

The 2006 winners were selected by a panel of 10 judges from industry and academia: Kim B. Clark, president, Brigham Young University Idaho; Michael J. Critelli, chairman and chief executive officer, Pitney Bowes; Lee C. Daley, global commercial director, Manchester United Football Club; Anand G. Mahindra, vice chairman and managing director, Mahindra & Mahindra; Dermot Mannion, chief executive, Aer Lingus; Michael Marks, senior advisor, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.; Anne Mulcahy, chairman and chief executive, Xerox Corporation; Walter J. Salmon, Stanley Roth, Sr. professor of retailing, emeritus, Harvard Business School; Linda G. Sprague, professor of manufacturing & operations management, China Europe International Business School; Dorothy Terrell, president and chief executive officer, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City.