Competing on Entrepreneurial Management Innovation

This study explores one of the best practice cases that have achieved competitive advantage through management innovation pursuing two significant strategic goals; business growth and social contribution. While managers have considered business growth as a crucial component of strategic plan, they have not taken account the social contribution as a part of their strategic map. Homeplus Co., Ltd. (hereafter Homeplus) develops a virtuous cycle that links business growth and social contribution through its unique management system, resulting in achieving superior business performance as well as acquiring the reputation of the most admired company. In investigating the innovative management system of Homeplus, this study adopts the fact-based management framework that is developed based on about 175 benchmarking visits to the best practice firms in various countries including U.S.A., Japan, and Thailand. Our in-depth analysis of Homeplus case not only describes the management system itself, but also investigates how various components in the system are interrelated with each other, resulting in making competitors hard to imitate. The result of this case study provides practical insights on how firms can pursue two strategic goals that are widely, but not accurately, considered to be a mere trade-off through the management innovation.