The doctoral thesis explores the relationship of Business and Society in four essays. The growing public, corporate and academic interest in organizational contribution to society – in this thesis measured as Public Value, Shared Value and Corporate Social Responsibility – poses the question how we can determine value creation beyond financial benefits. The thesis provides psychological and sociological perspectives to shed light on this pressuring question. The psychological view in essay four shows that value is rooted in relationship between an observing subject and an object that is to be evaluated, thus, it is not objectively out there. This perspective is rooted in motivational psychology of basic human needs upon which individuals assess the contribution of organizations to society. Adding to this emotional-affective perspective on human psychology, we show that cognition (‘cognitive styles’) plays a vital role in individuals’ determination of how value for society is created. Essay three provides evidence that how an individual perceives value creation for society reciprocally affects the individual. We show that employees who perceive their organizations’ value creation more strongly, also derive higher levels of meaningfulness from their work and identify more strongly with their employing organization, which in turn is related to higher levels of work addiction. The final paper takes a sociological perspective borrowed from the actor network theory and shows that some discourses concerning corporate value creation for society narrow the concept of value for society down to a self-serving notion for corporations. In a case study, the essay not only shows how this narrow concept infuses corporate action but, moreover, it details how it negatively impacts society. The multi-facetted approach of the dissertation furthers the understanding of the notion of value creation for society as much as it poses new questions and calls for ambivalent investigation.

Public administrations are required by law to contribute to society, thus obliged to shape the common good. What value they have to society is uncovered by their public value. This chapter provides an approach to public value management that is relevant for organizations, NGOs, and governmental institutions, in order to systematically iestigate their contributions to society. Previous work on public value serves as a good starting point, providing significant public value perspectives. We follow this by a conceptual delineation of the public value concept according to Timo Meynhardt, who roots the notion of value in psychological needs theory and thereby links public value directly to a conditio humana. As cases in point, we identify and discuss two management tools, the Public Value Scorecard (PVSC) and the Public Value Atlas. We conclude with a short reflection on how public value can advance public sector management.