Welcome to Transforming Business!

Transforming Business is a new research and development project in the University of Cambridge.

Enterprise-based Solutions to Poverty

Transforming Business analyzes and catalyzes the contribution of business to human development.

Its focus is on enterprise solutions to poverty.

We are interested in practical solutions – "what works?"

In finding answers to this question, we pay particular attention to the role of social capital – the institutional, relational, moral and spiritual aspects of society.

We believe that social capital is a fundamental, though often overlooked, dimension, both of successful business enterprise and economic development.

Through innovative research and quality instruction we aim to channel the rising concern about global poverty in fresh directions that will deliver tangible improvement and genuine opportunities for people in poverty.

We will use robust, creative, and multi-disciplinary thinking, along with practical models and case studies, to discover and disseminate the most effective means of escaping from poverty through enterprise.

Based in Cambridge University, the project has particularly close links with the university's Divinity Faculty and Judge Business School but also with the real world of business, both locally and globally.

The aims of the project are summarized in the adjacent column.

For an introduction to the project, visit the "About" section.

Support Transforming Business

Join us in combating poverty through enterprise!

This project is entirely dependent on the support of individuals - it receives no other funding. Gifts are made to the Cambridge Foundation, which has charitable status.

  

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Our Aims

The project aims to examine and disseminate:

  • the role of enterprise in the alleviation of poverty;
  • the factors that stimulate 'the spirit of enterprise';
  • the contribution of social capital to transformative business;
  • ethical frameworks that promote successful business;
  • case studies and practical models that inform, motivate and multiply poverty-reducing enterprise.
The overall purpose is to resource and inspire current and future business leaders and opinion formers with ideas, attitudes, practical models and tool-kits that will help business maximize its positive socio-economic impact.