Cristina Gibson’s Ambitious Community Codevelopment Research Featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review

Published in the Academy of Management Journal earlier this year, Pepperdine Graziadio professor Cristina Gibson’s groundbreaking research on corporate community partnerships made waves in the business world by developing an evidence-based model for developing and sustaining mutually beneficial corporate-community partnerships. The model emerged from a longitudinal qualitative ethnographic study of corporate-community investment programs, involving 1,176 hours of observations, 63 interviews, as well as narratives and reflections from participants representing 11 large corporations, at-risk remote Indigenous Australian communities, and a nonprofit organization.

Gibson’s research was recently the subject of a feature article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, detailing how the multi-year research project came about. Gibson’s research studied corporate-community codevelopment programs that involved secondments (second assignments, which dispatch an employee from their regular organization) where employees lived and worked in at-risk communities for 6 weeks to 3 months. The research, which took place over three years, revealed that corporate-community codevelopment had a bigger impact than traditional volunteering both for the employees and the communities they supported.

Stanford Social Innovation Review said “Gibson’s model suggests that a willingness to engage with the community and spend time there understanding its priorities to codesign initiatives can create a deep and lasting impact.”

Alan Meyer, a professor emeritus of management at the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business and interviewed for the article, said “Gibson’s respect for her Indigenous informants — as well as that of the corporations she studied — are exemplary and inspiring. Research like this makes the world a better place.”

Read the full article at the Stanford Social Innovation Review website.