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Case Study

The World Food Program

By Thomas W. Malnight, Tracey S. Keys and Kees Van der Graaf

3 pages

December 2009

Reference: IMD-3-2081

Unilever’s mission is to “add vitality to life.” As one of the world’s largest food companies, it believed that this mission clearly extended to the 850 million people around the world suffering from hunger and malnutrition. This case outlines briefly the partnership that Unilever created with the UN World Food Program (WFP) to address this issue, through 3 core activities: (1) Cause-related marketing; (2) national/school feeding support; and (3) employee engagement. Some of the activities and challenges of the employee engagement program, covering 200,000 people worldwide are covered in more detail.

Learning Objective

This case can be used to stimulate discussions with leaders around how to address the challenges and realize opportunities from CSR initiatives. Questions it can stimulate discussion around include: How do you gain the support of the wider organization for centrally developed initiatives? How do you align the objectives and messages of initiatives, such as the WFP, with those of your strategy and core brands? What does it take to overcome the hurdles?

Keywords

Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Leadership, Partnership, Food, General Management, Strategy

Settings

Unilever
2006 – 2008

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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