To Align Purpose and Profit, Company Culture Matters

The answer, according to Kellogg’s Brayden King, lies in creating a successful movement culture in the company—one that mobilizes people, inside and outside the organization, to work together to advance a societal goal.

That doesn’t mean chasing lofty ideals at the expense of the bottom line. An effective purpose-driven movement must connect with the strategy of the company, or else employees may find themselves in demotivating scenarios where economic incentives and civic aims are in conflict, says King, a professor of management and organizations.

“Strong cultures will have alignment between their strategic rationale and the organization’s broader purpose,” King says.

In a recent case study, King examined a business that has built a demonstrably effective movement culture. After becoming CEO of the Italian energy company E.ON Italia in April 2021, Frank Meyer sought to channel the organization’s longstanding sustainability initiatives into a larger renewable-energy movement. The message: “Make Italy Green.”

It was more than just a marketing slogan. By the time Meyer left the organization in early 2024, the company’s adjusted earnings had tripled—and millions of Italians had participated in E.ON Italia’s campaign through art installations, volunteer efforts, and a carbon-footprint app.

King and his collaborators, Marco Clemente, a professor at ZHAW School of Management and Law, and Amy Klopfenstein, a case researcher at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, looked at how the E.ON Italia leadership team developed a culture that would motivate employees—and the Italian public—to embrace sustainability.

E.ON Italia is proof that developing a movement culture can lead to differentiation and growth, King says.

Here are King’s suggestions for how organizations can undertake a cultural reset—and how they can broaden a cultural campaign beyond the company itself.

Establish a clear cultural link

At E.ON Italia, Meyer recognized that building a successful movement culture depended on that culture being aligned with the company’s business strategy. Sustainability-related projects had been part of E.ON Italia’s history almost since its inception as part of the European multinational electric utility company E.ON Group in 2000, so the company had a good foundation to build upon.

Most companies would do well to follow this path and build a culture based on the values they have already established internally.

“Figure out what your purpose is based on what you do well, what you currently believe in,” King says, “and then emphasize purpose as a way to refine and clarify that culture.”

In more-recent years, faced with regulatory pressure, the E.ON Group had transitioned away from its fossil fuel and nuclear generation services to a new business model based on sustainability. For E.ON Italia, prioritizing environmental sustainability as a purpose also addressed the higher social challenge of encouraging Italians to combat climate change.

The Make Italy Green campaign provided an opportunity for the company to promote that environmental mission—and itself. E.ON Italia created art installations around Italy, including an apartment building frozen over due to excessive air conditioning and a boat suspended above Lake Garda, illustrating declining water levels in Italy’s largest lake.

While these installations were motivated by marketing, they also drew attention to the threats of climate change.

“E.ON Italia’s brand campaigns helped Italian consumers understand how their use of energy contributed to climate change,” King says. “It invited consumers to join E.ON Italia in forming a movement to lower carbon emissions.”

Build inside-out and bottom-up

When establishing a cultural campaign, it helps to build it from within the organization, starting with the rank –and file. If the movement has the potential to generate personal attachment inside the company, it is more likely to resonate with society at large. At E.ON Italia, Meyer didn’t simply dictate the Make Italy Green message to the company’s staff.

“You’re never going to get the culture you want if you’re just telling people what to do,” King says. “You also need to listen to the employees and have them be a part of that process.”

To that end, E.ON Italia held town halls where it gathered employee input. It also brought in a consultant to take that input and visualize it as a map that showed the organization’s vision and the challenges ahead in graphic form.

“There has to be some way to listen and then create an artifact of what employees believe the culture is,” he says. “That’s a reminder to them but also a physical instantiation of the culture.”

Make Italy Green acted as a unifying concept for E.ON Italia’s marketing and volunteering activities as well. While cleaning up beaches or planting trees are typical forms of corporate community engagement, under Meyer’s vision they were ways for employees to embody the company’s purpose.

“You started seeing employees change their behaviors in their own lives,” King says, including adjusting their home thermostats and switching from driving to commuting via public transit.

The company is only the beginning

The key component of a movement culture, though, is that it’s linked to a broader societal goal that aligns with the company’s beliefs and practices.

“I don’t know that Steve Jobs used the term ‘movement culture,’ but when he was leading Apple as CEO, he definitely saw Apple’s technologies as a way to transform broader culture,” King says. “He got bored by the idea that you just make money at this. He wanted to create things that would change the way people related to the world and simplify their lives. Design was for him the way to get there.”

Apple’s goal was different from E.ON Italia’s, but it was similarly transformative and linked to a purpose beyond the organization. As one of Italy’s smaller energy companies, E.ON Italia pitched its Make Italy Green marketing campaign to the wider Italian public, not just potential customers. The company rolled out an app that anyone could use to track their carbon footprint, whether or not they used E.ON Italia as their energy provider.

To have a movement culture, companies must expand beyond their usual walled gardens, King says. “You need to make the boundaries much more porous, so that people can use the resources that the organization provides to accomplish the goals of the movement.”

“Maybe you’re expending costs that you wouldn’t otherwise, but they saw it as a win–win, because you’re accomplishing the movement’s goals but you’re also increasing the brand visibility and potentially growing your customer base while also raising the commitment and engagement of your employees,” King says. “It’s not this naïve, ideal-driven model. It’s also one clearly leading to the company’s growth strategy.”

Stay aligned in big and small ways

Implementing a movement culture is not easy. It requires clear communication and buy-in from employees across the organization—some of whom may object to the social purpose. But King contends that some turnover can be a tool for strengthening the culture.

“You’re going to lose employees who are maybe less believing in the purpose even as you attract other people who do believe. Some turnover helps strengthen the culture,” he says.

Embracing a purpose may also expose the organization to pushback from clients and the general public. After a customer complained when an E.ON Italia employee arrived in a diesel car for a solar-panel installation, the company hatched a plan for transitioning its fleet to electric vehicles.

“Any time you as a company take a stand on something related to values, you’re opening yourself up for criticism,” King says. “It’s something the company and the executives have to be willing to do if they believe it’s important.”

While any movement culture won’t be purely altruistic, consistency is key.

“Companies that make these choices have to make sure that what they’re saying on the outside is solidified by what they’re doing internally,” King says.

The experience of E.ON Italia, he suggests, shows that a coherent and holistic approach can go a long way.

“A cynical person might look at this and say, ‘Oh, this is all just greenwashing,’” he says. “If it was only clever marketing, that would be a valid critique. But the fact that they went beyond that and they bought in, that’s really inspiring.”