Maslow's hierarchy of needs is one of the fundamental precepts in psychology and is ubiquitous in the world of business, marketing, human resource management, and elsewhere. We use it everyday of our lives and the pyramid below needs no explanation.
If we examine a business over a period of time, one can make the case that there exists a similar hierarchy of needs applicable to a business. So, let's build such a hierarchy for a business.
At the bottom of the pyramid comes the need for survival - threshold level resources that ensures that the company keeps going. Since survival is not enough for most businesses, and the need to grow is paramount for the owners and other stakeholders, the second level of the hierarchy could be 'growth'.
After a while, a business seeks recognition and a feeling of belongingness in the area of business in which it operates. This is natural; when a company is born, the market and its competitors look at it with some degree of suspicion about its longevity, unless it brings some highly differentiated product and/or technology offering which carries the threat of upsetting the hitherto comfortable apple cart of the business domain. After some years of consistent growth and success, the business is now an accepted member of the space, and it seeks 'membership' of the business world. Ad and marketing communication agencies want to win awards; companies want membership of their respective trade associations, and to attend association meetings and network with their peers.
The next tier is respect. Businesses want to earn respect and want the world to show this respect. It can take various forms - talented people want to work for it; customers want to work with it; company leaders are voted to leadership positions in trade associations; the company is expected to set the tone in conversations about the industry, the market and other such matters. CSR starts to become an important strategy at this stage.
At the summit of the hierarchy is the tier I've called 'statesmanship'. The company has the resources to do things not directly or even indirectly affecting its state of health. CSR activities gather higher momentum and cover a larger canvas of operations. Company leaders start working with governments on issues which do not limited to its areas of businesses; the business commits resources to enhance skills and knowledge not purely for its own consumption.
Hence, the skeletal hierarchy could be depicted as below:
I've called it 'skeletal' since right now, it's just an idea - interesting, but untested, unproven, and it might not even be new!
I'd love to have readers send their opinions, constructive or destructive, examples of such descriptions from published sources, etc; I'd really love to learn in this area.
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| [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow] |
If we examine a business over a period of time, one can make the case that there exists a similar hierarchy of needs applicable to a business. So, let's build such a hierarchy for a business.
At the bottom of the pyramid comes the need for survival - threshold level resources that ensures that the company keeps going. Since survival is not enough for most businesses, and the need to grow is paramount for the owners and other stakeholders, the second level of the hierarchy could be 'growth'.
After a while, a business seeks recognition and a feeling of belongingness in the area of business in which it operates. This is natural; when a company is born, the market and its competitors look at it with some degree of suspicion about its longevity, unless it brings some highly differentiated product and/or technology offering which carries the threat of upsetting the hitherto comfortable apple cart of the business domain. After some years of consistent growth and success, the business is now an accepted member of the space, and it seeks 'membership' of the business world. Ad and marketing communication agencies want to win awards; companies want membership of their respective trade associations, and to attend association meetings and network with their peers.
The next tier is respect. Businesses want to earn respect and want the world to show this respect. It can take various forms - talented people want to work for it; customers want to work with it; company leaders are voted to leadership positions in trade associations; the company is expected to set the tone in conversations about the industry, the market and other such matters. CSR starts to become an important strategy at this stage.
At the summit of the hierarchy is the tier I've called 'statesmanship'. The company has the resources to do things not directly or even indirectly affecting its state of health. CSR activities gather higher momentum and cover a larger canvas of operations. Company leaders start working with governments on issues which do not limited to its areas of businesses; the business commits resources to enhance skills and knowledge not purely for its own consumption.
Hence, the skeletal hierarchy could be depicted as below:
I've called it 'skeletal' since right now, it's just an idea - interesting, but untested, unproven, and it might not even be new!
I'd love to have readers send their opinions, constructive or destructive, examples of such descriptions from published sources, etc; I'd really love to learn in this area.
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