Abstract
Large-size corporations play important roles in addressing social problems such as health disparity. The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) demonstrates the roles of corporations in society and argues for sustainable business development. Inclusive Design as a responsible design approach could contribute to developing inclusive products and services and creating sustainable value for businesses. This paper explores the opportunities to integrate Inclusive Design into business, with a focus on fulling corporate social responsibility. The literature review on CSR and Inclusive Design identifies the common objective of creating sustainable value and generating social value simultaneously. Subsequently, a multi-case study of three mHealth service providers in China was conducted by using publicly available information to gain an understanding of the antecedents, actions, and outcomes of CSR practices. The case analysis finds a lack of awareness of delivering inclusive mHealth services and a divergent use of market-based approaches and philanthropic-based approaches. The discussion presents different levels of integrating Inclusive Design into business and proposes future research opportunities.
Keywords
inclusive design, corporate social responsibility, m-health service, health disparity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.262
Citation
Zhu, H., de Bont, C., Gruber, T., and Dong, H. (2022) Exploring the roles of inclusive design in fulfilling corporate social responsibility: A multi-case study of three large-size mhealth corporations, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.262
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Exploring the roles of inclusive design in fulfilling corporate social responsibility: A multi-case study of three large-size mhealth corporations
Large-size corporations play important roles in addressing social problems such as health disparity. The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) demonstrates the roles of corporations in society and argues for sustainable business development. Inclusive Design as a responsible design approach could contribute to developing inclusive products and services and creating sustainable value for businesses. This paper explores the opportunities to integrate Inclusive Design into business, with a focus on fulling corporate social responsibility. The literature review on CSR and Inclusive Design identifies the common objective of creating sustainable value and generating social value simultaneously. Subsequently, a multi-case study of three mHealth service providers in China was conducted by using publicly available information to gain an understanding of the antecedents, actions, and outcomes of CSR practices. The case analysis finds a lack of awareness of delivering inclusive mHealth services and a divergent use of market-based approaches and philanthropic-based approaches. The discussion presents different levels of integrating Inclusive Design into business and proposes future research opportunities.