ESCP Professor Isaac Getz publishes new book with Laurent Marbacher: The Caring Company

Published and distributed by American multinational publishing company, Wiley, Getz and Marbacher’s new book is a bold roadmap for businesses that put the common good first.

The Caring Company: How to Shift Business and the Economy for Good is a timely guide arguing that organisations can make unconditional care for customers, suppliers, and communities their number one priority and outperform traditional competitors.

“Despite the many benefits that capitalism has delivered, we live in a world in which the social and environmental downsides jeopardise the positive effects. We need to urgently redefine what a business is for and take a fundamentally different approach before it is too late,” argues Professor Isaac Getz.

Grounded in a multi-year study across industries and geographies, the book blends insights from history, economics, psychology and philosophy with contemporary cases to show how caring relationships—beyond transactional interactions—generate superior, durable performance.

What makes a Caring Company

While there has been a surge in well-meaning efforts from businesses to transform their operations to balance social and environmental value with profits, research shows that these efforts are largely unsuccessful or insufficient. Instead, a radically different way, counterintuitive to traditional business thinking is required. Introducing “The Caring Company.”

Rather than treating profit as the primary goal, The Caring Company positions profit as a natural consequence of embedding social and environmental needs at the heart of day-to-day operations. The authors distinguish their approach from CSR add-ons or “balancing” frameworks (e.g. B-Corps and stakeholder capitalism) that risk “chasing several rabbits” at once.

Inside The Caring Company

• Part I — HOW TO DO – OR NOT TO DO – GOOD: A look at businesses’ past and present approaches to doing good
• Part II — THE CARING COMPANY WAY: A practical transformation playbook to become a caring company.
• Part III — SHIFTING BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY: A reimagining of what the future of business – and of the broader economy could look like.

Case studies include: Reitan Retail (Scandinavia), Eisai (Japan), Handelsbanken (Sweden & UK), The FruitGuys and Traditional Medicinals (USA).

“Our book tells the stories of outstanding, yet often discreet companies – small and large, public, and private, in diverse industries and geographies – that are quietly reinventing what it means to operate a business successfully while meeting the world’s biggest challenges. These stories fly in the face of traditional business thinking and sound too good to be true! However, they are and offer a much-needed new approach for business to follow,” concludes Professor Isaac Getz.

Early praise for The Caring Company

Finalists for the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award, The Caring Company was praised by Thinkers50 for challenging the traditional view of business as transactional. “Your call for organisations to build unconditionally caring relationships—with customers, suppliers, and communities—offers a powerful redefinition of purpose-driven business. It’s a bold and timely contribution to rethinking capitalism for the common good.”

The book has also been endorsed by:

• Hubert Joly (Harvard Business School; former Best Buy CEO; bestselling author, The Heart of Business): “Through vivid case studies, Getz and Marbacher offer proof that we can, indeed, do well by doing good.”
• Denis Machuel (CEO, The Adecco Group): “Isaac Getz and Laurent Marbacher make a remarkable demonstration of this innovative way of reinventing leadership, business, and the economy. A must-read for every executive!”
• Joseph Jaworski (Founder, American Leadership Forum; Chairman, Generon International; bestselling author, Synchronicity and Source): “This is the most important business book I have read in the past 25 years. This solution requires courage and boldness. Don’t wait. The time is now.”