Never Mind the Bake Off, here’s the Great Business Bake In?

By David Hunter, Knowledge Exchange Fellow (University of Bristol Law School).

It seems much of the UK will be focused this year on The Great British Bake Off and whether it will be quite the same, or as successful, as it was in its previous incarnation. Away from popular culture, but with an even more pervasive impact on the lives of the nation, it could be a baking in, rather than a bake off, that is significant in 2017. The ingredient is mission, or purpose, being baked into the constitutions and cultures of business. (more…)

What is the point of Business?

By David Hunter, Consultant, Charity & Social Enterprise Department (Bates Wells Braithwaite LLP) and Knowledge Exchange Fellow (University of Bristol Law School)[1] and Ms Nina Boeger, Senior Lecturer in Law and Director of the Centre for Law and Enterprise (University of Bristol Law School).

img-20161127-wa0001Businesses are, in some respects, like cement. They are an integral part of the society we inhabit, and yet for the most part invisible to us as tangible entities. We give them little thought, but our lives would be very different were we to wake up to a world without either.

In April 2016, the UK government did invite us to think about the nature of business though as part of what it called a Mission-led Business Review. It set up an Advisory Panel and ran a public consultation and, seven months on, the Panel has reported back to the government with its recommendations[2]. The timing is interesting, with the review commencing when David Cameron was still Prime Minister, before the UK’s Referendum on EU membership and the US election, but the publication of the Panel’s findings coming when those events have demonstrated a clear sense of public discontent with the status quo.

What was the Review about, what is a ‘mission-led business’ and what are the likely responses to and impact of the Panel’s findings? (more…)