MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How Ukrainian Companies Are Transforming Wartime Challenges Into Lifelines

These four organizations pursued nimble and purposeful innovation when corporate social responsibility shifted from an option to an existential necessity.

War subjects businesses to unprecedented tests. With governments stretched to their limits, businesses must step in and assume responsibilities far beyond their conventional mandates, profoundly transforming the notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR). As national survival and corporate survival become more and more intertwined, we see questions shift from “Should we do something?” to “What could we do?” — transforming CSR from a voluntary initiative to an existential necessity.

Amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, businesses offer a compelling blueprint for responsibility-driven innovation, with the potential to redefine global CSR practices in crisis contexts. Four Ukrainian companies have distinguished themselves with particular thoughtfulness and ingenuity in their approaches to launching socially responsible initiatives during the war, with wartime adversity fueling innovation and societal impact. Their examples show that embracing CSR as an existential imperative enables scalable impact, imbues companies with deeper meaning, and can enhance corporate innovation efforts ― making responsibility rather than necessity the mother of invention.

About the Author

Maxim Sytch is the Jack D. Sparks – Whirlpool Corporation Research Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Christopher I. Rider is the Thomas C. Kinnear Professor and an associate professor of entrepreneurial studies at the Ross School of Business.

Learn more about MIT SMR.