Business Model of Community-based Corporation in Japan : A case study on the management system of the Green Fund Group

Nonprofit organizations (NPO), in each community, can become practitioners in creating new industries in Japan. The Hokkaido Green Fund (HGF) is an NPO that has achieved this, as a wind power generation company. Unlike many NPOs that are unable to run a sustainable business platform, HGF has overcome that challenge. The reason for this is that they have developed a management system that combines the NPO model and a corporation. The purpose of this research is to focus on and show the management style that allows for the possibility of the commercialization of NPOs working with the residents of their communities. The focus of this study is HGF, which has used a management style that works in cooperation with the Community Wind Power Co., Ltd. (CWP) and the Japan Green Fund Co., Ltd. (JGF) to implement a community-driven renewable energy project. They have created a system in the regional economy whereby residents take the initiative in raising private funds to invest in the business, and the profits contribute back to the local environment and welfare. CWP specializes in the wind turbine business, and JGF supports NPOs in financing projects; the scale of each company's business is growing. The financial performance of CWP and JGF, in addition to the value of the two enterprises, also represents the societal approval of HGF. In this paper, we used two methods. First, we conducted a semi-structured interview with stakeholders in the Green Fund Group that was an advanced case of integrating both the NPO and corporation format into one management form. Second, we analyzed the structure of the NPO and the corporate value of the corporation. By bringing together the results of the aforementioned survey, we derived the features and possibilities of business entities that utilize a hybrid management style of NPO and corporation. The NPO, by having a profit-oriented department to ensure sustainability of the project, and the company, by adding institutional plans to ensure a social mission, acquire a hybrid management style. An entity with this management style can collaborate with organizations belonging to any sector and can create goods and services that are hard to supply by existing players, through policy measures, commercial projects, and volunteer activities, providing a stable supply to people living in the community. They can formulate policy, create goods and services, meet with providers and buyers, and join them together in order to establish buying and selling (adjusting for supply and demand) to open up a market whose existence may have gone unnoticed. In this market, investors and consumers can cross paths while fulfilling a social responsibility and take part in developing business leaders. In this research, these kinds of community-based multiple corporations are called community-based corporations. If the created investment market expands as a result of the business of the community-based corporation, a system that prepare corporations to diverge from their business philosophies is built in regional level.22nd Annual IRSPM conference 2018. 10th-13th April 2018. Center for Service Excellence University of Edinburgh Business School, UK