Innovation in Leadership: Towards CSR and the Creation of Shared Value in a Humanistic Management Perspective

Research background: Based on the continuous environmental changes that companies must face and the crise of the shareholder capitalism, the framework of our research concerns the need to innovate the traditional approach to leadership, inspired by the scientific management paradigm, to move towards a humanistic management approach. Purpose of the article: The paper aims to propose a reflection on the need for a paradigm shift in corporate leadership, starting from the need to integrate the perspective of CSR with that of shared value. Pursuing the goal of shared value goes beyond the traditional corporate purpose oriented towards maximizing shareholder value and reflects the humanistic management approach, centered on an anthropocentric vision of leadership. Methods: Starting from the observation of the significant changes in the environmental and competitive contexts of recent years and the emerging affirmation of the stakeholder capitalism paradigm, the study analyses, through a conceptual approach, the evolutionary path of the leadership approach necessary to face the challenges of change. Findings & Value added: The study highlights how the shared value perspective can represent an objective capable of inspiring the behavior of leaders in pursuing CSR from a humanistic management perspective. The practical implications are multiple and of enormous impact on the economy and society. In fact, if companies convincedly adopted the humanistic management perspective in leadership activity and pursued CSR strategies to create shared value, the crisis of the current model of capitalism could be neutralized and the well-being of society and the environment would increase. The originality and added value of the contribution lies in proposing the necessary connection between CSR, the leaders as strategic actors of change and the shared value, as a goal to be pursued in the perspective of a humanistic management.