Values-Based Education for Sustainability Marketers

Sustainable Development for Marketing Students

Often seen as a source of competitive advantage for many firms, the definition of sustainable development continues to flux as it is adopted and applied by various fields (Hult 2011; see Table 1 for a list of definitions). Hart and Milstein (2003) define sustainable development as a process of achieving human development in an inclusive, connected, equitable, prudent, and secure manner (Hart & Milstein 2003), while Huang and Rust (2011) focus on environmental quality and the conservation of nature’s assets in consumption. Others view sustainability as a trio of issues to include economic profitability, respect for the environment, and social responsibility (Boyd, 2001; Johnson 2009) or more simply put: people, planet, and profit (Norman & MacDonald, 2004). Sheth, Sethia, and Srinivas (2011) suggest that

as a business goal, sustainability thus construed, translates into a “triple bottom line” responsibility, with the implication that assessment of business results should be based not only on economic performance, but should take into account the environmental and social impact as well. (p. 4)

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Table 1.

Definitions of Sustainability Terms.

Term	Definition	Citation
Sustainable development	A process of achieving human development in an inclusive, connected, equitable, prudent, and secure manner	Hart and Milstein (2003)
	Development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”	World Commission on Environment and Development (1987)
	Environmental quality and the conservation of nature’s assets in consumption	Strong (1997)
Sustainable organization	One that simultaneously delivers economic, social and environmental benefits—or more simply put, focuses on the “triple bottom line” of people, planet, and profit	Norman and MacDonald (2004)
Sustainability	Economic development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
	A way of doing business that creates profit while avoiding harm to people and the planet	The Center for Sustainable Enterprise (2010)
	The triple bottom line of economic profitability, respect for the environment, and social responsibility	Boyd (2001); Johnson (2009)
	A “triple bottom line” responsibility, with the implication that assessment of business results should be based not only on economic performance, but should take into account the environmental and social impact as well	Sheth et al. (2011)
	An approach organizations are adopting to conduct business, an approach that requires altering established norms and rules for organizations worldwide	Chabowski et al. (2011)
Sustainable marketing	Marketing that is within, and supportive of, sustainable economic development	Hunt (2011)
Sustainability initiatives	Run the gamut from changing the façade (advertising and packaging that promotes green products/services) to radical changes in business procedures (marketing focus, where facilities are located; how products/services are delivered; and how employees, customers, suppliers, and other stake-holders are treated throughout the process)	Closs et al. (2011)
Green sustainability initiatives	Sustainability-oriented marketing strategies as a function of the cost of materials and energy, public pressure, awareness of triple bottom line practices among the public, and consumers’ growing antipathy to globalization	Cronin et al. (2011)

Chabowski, Mena, and Gonzalez-Padron (2011) support this logic suggesting that sustainability is an approach organizations are adopting to conduct business, an approach that requires altering established norms and rules for organizations worldwide. The converging viewpoint, and that which is taken by us in this research, centers on sustainable development as that which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environmental Development, 1987, p. 8.).

Hult (2011) suggested a marketing-based conceptualization of sustainability that structures the concept within the more rigorous confines of marketing theory, calling it “market orientation plus.” His proposed framework is that

an organization achieves market-based sustainability to the extent that it strategically aligns itself with the market-oriented product needs and wants of customers and the interests of multiple stakeholders concerned about social responsibility issues involving economic, environmental and social dimensions. (p. 5)

This form of marketing involves “planning, implementing and controlling the development, pricing, promotion and product distribution that satisfy customer needs, organizational goals and assure ecosystem compatibility” (Fuller & Gillett, 1999, p. 222). As these are structured around the typical marketing mix, it is easy to equate sustainability marketing with concepts like social responsibility marketing, humanistic marketing, and ecological marketing. However, compared with these areas, sustainability marketing is more holistic with an equal emphasis on environmental, social equity, economic, and financial concerns in the development of marketing strategies. Sadly, marketing has often been perceived as part of the problem rather than the solution to societal problems such as pollution, overconsumption, the depletion of natural resources, unhealthy lifestyles, and human rights abuses (Bridges & Wilhelm, 2008; Holt, 2012; Sheth & Sisodia, 2005). To rectify this perception, for-profit companies and social service groups alike are turning to marketing professionals trained in sustainable development to alter and grow their organizations in a more appropriate direction.

Values-Based Learning and Practical Organizational Behavior Education (PROBE)

If the outcome of a marketing program is to produce graduates capable of understanding and targeting issues related to “market orientation plus” or the triple bottom line, educators need to employ methods that focus on creating a culture and an environment within the classroom that supports and encourages this orientation. Values-based learning is ideally suited to achieve this goal, as it is an ethos that emphasizes the importance of creating teaching and learning environments that are characterized by values related to sustainability such as respect, responsibility, tolerance, and peace (Drake, 2007).

Values are expressions of, or beliefs in, the worth of objects, qualities, or behaviors. They invoke strong feelings, define or direct people to their goals, frame attitudes, and provide standards against which the behavior of individuals and societies can be judged (Robert, Parris, & Leiserowitz, 2005). Values are relatively abstract and trans-situational which can make it difficult to implement pedagogical methods that can successfully influence them. However, values are at the center of education for sustainable development. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences suggests three major categories of items to be valued in a study of sustainability: nature, life support systems (resources, environment), and community (Ness, Urbel-Piirsalu, Anderberg, & Olsson, 2007). Therefore, to teach students about sustainability, educators must use pedagogies that focus on these three areas. By allowing students to engage with topics of value, learning can occur in conjunction with caring about the topic. In this way, values or morality can be viewed not only as the intended outcome, but also as the means toward attaining it (Drake, 2007). A specific pedagogical style that has proven effective in engaging students with the concepts of values, morals, and ethics is experiential learning.

As defined by Kolb (1984), experiential learning is a process through which knowledge is created by the transformation of experience. Students are able to apply concepts and theories to real-life situations and are able to establish connections between what they have learned and what they have observed and experienced. Experiential learning has been found to be a powerful pedagogical tool that “allows students to actively engage in a safe and supportive environment” (Hunter-Jones, 2012, p. 19).

Nirenberg (1994) suggested a method of using experiential learning called Practical Organizational Behavior Education (PROBE). His conceptualization of the pedagogy is one that

combines an experiential approach with a student-centered (self-directed) methodology that allows students of all cultures and backgrounds to create theory from their experience and to conclude the course with a strong understanding of what principles work for them in an organizational setting and those that do not. (p. 325)

It is believed that effective learning requires immersion into the practice of a topic, resulting in the cultivation of student understanding regarding the personal qualities and interpersonal processes that lead to success or failure in a work situation. Findings suggest that social and environmental entrepreneurs often have a deep passion for their work, and that experiential learning enables students to create and experience this passion, thus developing it early in their careers.

In developing and testing PROBE, Nirenberg (1994) used both nonprofit and for-profit businesses, believing that each format offered a different type of experience for the students. Stemming from this earlier work, we suggest that a primary focus on nonprofit organizations that are almost solely focused on economic prosperity, environmental quality, and/or social equity (Schwartz & Carroll, 2008) is an excellent marketing-specific way to implement a sustainable development curriculum. However, is it important to frame this in the context of basic marketing theory early in the curriculum so that students have a good understanding of key marketing concepts and principles. The reasons for this perspective are threefold.

First, if a core focus of education in sustainability is on developing marketing professionals and employees who are socially conscious and sustainably focused, the most obvious place to start is with organizations whose missions and values are the ultimate goal of its operations. Hull and Lio (2006) explored the primary differences between for-profit and nonprofit organizations and summarized them into various categories including vision, scope of impact, and constraints. They argue that the ultimate vision of a for-profit is “to consist primarily (for) increasing profits to maximize shareholder (financial) value while for nonprofits, an appropriate summary of vision could be “to create the greatest possible amount of social change” (p. 55). When focused on the organization’s impact on society, for-profits often use profitability, not social change, as the key decision making factor; mostly because “concerns about social impact and social responsibility are often seen as running contrary to the profit motive” (p. 55). Nonprofits on the other hand are less concerned with financial gain (O’Connor & Raber, 2001), having the ability to balance their revenue to create a substantial societal impact.

Second, by enhancing student perspectives of the mission of nonprofits, marketing educators can help to provide students with the sustainability tool kit necessary to succeed in the nonprofit sector—one key component of the ESD initiative. At 10.7 million workers as of 2010, nonprofit organizations employ the third largest workforce among U.S. industries, behind only trade and manufacturing. According to a report conducted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, nonprofit jobs have posted a 10-year record of job growth with an annual growth rate of 2.1% from 2000 to 2010 (for-profit jobs declined at an average of negative 0.6%; Salamon, Sokolowski, & Geller, 2012). A core problem with this growth is the overwhelming competition for the limited funding available to nonprofit organizations (Peloza & Hassay, 2007). However, this is a boon for marketing graduates seeking employment, as the fierce competitive landscape has resulted in greater interest from the nonprofit sector in the hiring of highly trained marketing professionals (Clarke & Mount, 2001; Katz, 2005).

Third, Küster and Vila (2006) found that more than 75% of core business modules taught in business schools throughout America and Europe consisted of strategic marketing, principles of marketing, marketing research, and marketing communications. Additional modules consisted of the hard topics of supply chain/logistics, small business marketing, and even B2B marketing, but the field of nonprofit or social service marketing was not even mentioned (Harrigan & Hulbert, 2011). Therefore, it makes sense that the third reason for using a nonprofit landscape to educate marketing students about sustainable development is that while most marketing students come away from school with a strong overall business foundation that supports the “profit” component of the sustainability triple bottom line, a focus on the other two areas of “people” and “planet” appear to be lacking.

However, in the spirit of Nirenberg (1994), we argue that other forms of firms also be included in the creation of sustainability classes. In addition to nonprofits, we also suggest the use of groups that straddle the for-profit/nonprofit line, such as social enterprises. When the singular vision of pure nonprofits is combined with entrepreneurial spirit to fulfill the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit, it is commonly termed social entrepreneurship. These organizations identify marketing opportunities that generate earned income while also addressing social problems (Gundlach & Zivnuska, 2010), using market-based methods to address a variety of social issues thus transforming “compassion into entrepreneurship” (Miller, Grimes, McMullen, & Vogus, 2012).

However, given the three-pronged focus on the triple bottom line concepts of financial, environmental and social results, it is important to also emphasize for students the financial viability organizations must have, especially the fine line between earning money for profit and stakeholders, and creating wealth in underdeveloped communities to improve daily life (Bornstein, 2004). For-profits use of sustainability concepts is still growing and changing, with many companies continuing to put the concept on the back burner because they fear the impact on the bottom line. However, small steps are being taken and it is easy to find organizations that donate products or services to worthy recipients or even small portions of their profit to select nonprofits. Including a discussion of for-profit activities can strengthen student learning on the topic of sustainability, as they contrast with the mission and goals of nonprofits and social service.

Sustainability Marketing Course Development

The PROBE framework focuses on offering a practical, real-world learning experience to students (Nirenberg, 1994). It is an overarching pedagogical methodology that provides students with experiential educational opportunities that supplement or even replace a traditional lecture and textbook approach. The original conceptualization was of a very flexible model that could be adapted to the needs of different instructors in a variety of disciplines; but it was specifically designed to be effective at engaging students in any courses covering the concepts of sustainable development. At its heart, PROBE encourages students to think and act entrepreneurially, forcing them to be accountable for not only financial, but also social and personal components of a business. Its use in teaching sustainability marketing, where the triple bottom line is focused on earning income while also addressing social and environmental problems, is clear (Amin, Cameron, & Hudson, 2002; Boschee, 2001; Leadbeater, 1998; Oster, Massarsky, & Beinhacker, 2004).

Using PROBE and the suggestions made by the Education for Sustainable Development initiative, we developed two successful sustainable development courses grounded in marketing curriculum. Both programs can be run using nonprofit, social service and social enterprise organizations from which students explore the values, ethics, morals, and marketing skills needed to successfully deliver products and services to a variety of communities.

Focusing on engagement with the foundation of sustainable development first (e.g., society, environment, and economy), and then a discussion of marketing that develops as students progress, allows students to realize a majority of benefits aligned with engaged learning as identified by Eyler, Giles, Stenson, and Gray (2001). These positive outcomes include (a) academic development in the form of “real world” problem solving, critical thinking, and cognitive capability; (b) personal development such as moral development, spiritual growth, and leadership skills; (c) social development that includes commitment to service and a sense of overall social responsibility; and (d) career development where students are more likely to seek positions with organizations who also have a sustainability bottom line.

Although the courses explore perspectives on sustainability issues in different ways, they share some important similarities. First, students are introduced to the concepts through direct interaction. Second, they take an active role in defining and observing the sustainability marketing concepts in practice at various nonprofit organizations. Finally, grounded in their organizational experiences, the students relate the concepts in a personally meaningful way. This methodology truly enables students to become conscious of what is happening to them in work situations and allows space personal reflection on whether typical business behaviors are acceptable or should be challenged and reformed (Nirenberg, 1994).

Course Overview

The Introduction to Sustainable Development (ISD) course challenges incoming business students to consider the question of why sustainable development is important in business. By engaging first-year students in sustainability and marketing topics early in their studies, we can encourage the development of their identities as future marketing managers and socially conscious world citizens. It is assumed that these students have very limited knowledge of basic marketing principles at the time they take the course, so a strong marketing foundation is introduced at the same time sustainability concepts are discussed. To accomplish this, we begin by developing an understanding of a market orientation and the idea of meeting consumer and community need for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Students in the ISD class are exposed to marketing topics from a hands-on, ground-up experiential approach. Students are introduced to the idea of unfulfilled need and encouraged to develop ideas for a marketing/customer-focused strategy intent on need fulfillment. This format leads to a deeper and more memorable form of learning, discovering the concepts from people who have sustainable development ideals at their core. To the extent that the sustainable development paradigm focuses on a broad range of issues serving a variety of populations, students need to be exposed to a wide range of topics and organizations (Bornstein, 2004; Seelos & Mair, 2005). They should meet and talk with representatives of programs that have “the capacity to be both commercially viable and socially constructive” (Tracey & Phillips, 2007, p. 265). To accomplish this, we use in-depth personal visits to a variety of local organizations, coupled with classroom discussions and a hands-on final project developing a marketing plan for their very own nonprofit organization.

As Diamond, Koernig, and Iqbal (2008) pointed out, classroom experiences alone do not prepare students to “do marketing.” Instead, many educators are defending the use of first year experience (FYE)-style courses that preemptively engage incoming students on various topics. Engaged early interaction is viewed as a way to stop the trend toward poorly prepared students who are ultimately less successful in their college careers (Greene, 2011). To capitalize on the benefits of both formats (classroom and FYE), the ISD course is split into two specific stages: a weeklong immersion program followed by a quarter or semester-long classroom experience. This methodology targets the ESD perspective of developing “sustainability-colored glasses” early on in the students’ college career.

ISD Stage 1: Week-Long Immersion

Immersion classes have long been used to enhance learning through a dynamic environment where the student is at the center of all classroom activities; where involvement, participation, and discussion are the cornerstones to development of a topic area (Nirenberg, 1994). In the first stage of the ISD course, students meet for 8 to 10 hours of learning over the course of 5 to 7 days. This intensive interaction provides faculty leaders the opportunity to strongly engage with students and develop much stronger rapport than a typical class allows (Granitz, Koernig, & Harich, 2009; Greene, 2011).

Keeping the four key outcomes for engaged learning in mind (Eyler et al., 2001), incorporating academic, personal, social, and career development into the course is a top priority. To solve real world problems, students must first identify them, and identify with them. Therefore, the immersion program begins not with a textbook discussion of what is sustainability marketing, but instead with a discussion of marketing strategy. An initial discussion of the segmentation of community types can include an exploration of everything from geographic regions of the city, demographic areas (e.g., wealth, culture, young, gay), ethnic areas (e.g., Chinatown, Latino, or Indian areas), sociodemographic divisions (e.g., homeless vs. affluent), and even religious or psychographic communities (e.g., the arts). Beginning with market segmentation allows the focus of the entire course to revolve around the psychology of need within consumer behavior and society; of people and the communities in which they live, and subsequently the concept of how organizations meet the needs of these individuals in a meaningful and sustainable way. Even students with little or no marketing background can identify with this concept and see the natural, practical, and daily development of marketing concepts framed in the ideas of outreach, fundraising and budgets, and marketing promotion.

Talking about concepts is only part of the educational process. The next step is to explore the idea of sustainable development in action by showing students various organizations at work. We suggest following a top-down plan, beginning with large, culturally diverse organizations that represent and serve an amorphous segment of the local population. Most often we choose to begin our experiential visits at cultural centers, historical sites, or city and state run museums or zoos. These types of community development programs are perfect for painting a real-world sustainability marketing picture for the student without having to focus too heavily on profit or funding issues. An example of a typical immersion week schedule including organizations, assignments, reflective questions, and assessments can be found in Table 2.

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Table 2.

ISD Immersion Week Suggested Schedule and Assignments.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Time	9:00-11:00	9:00-12:00	10:00-12:00	9:00-12:00	10:00-3:00
Activity	Orientation	NFP Lecture/Tour	NFP Visit/Lecture	NFP Lecture/Tour	NFP Service
Location	Classroom	Chicago History Museum	Streetwise Chicago—social enterprise focused on ending homelessness	Providence Family Services—Catholic nuns supporting Latino community	Ronald McDonald House—Tour followed by full day of helping
Transportation		Public	Public	Public	Public
Assignment	Rapport building	Scavenger hunt on Chicago communities	Discussion—more than one-way to “help”?	Language, culture, religion . . . trouble reaching users?	How can you contribute? What about a company?
Meal	Picnic (local shops)	Provided.	Provided.	Chicago Pizza
Time	12:00-2:00	12:00-2:00	1:30-5:00	2:00-5:00
Activity	NFP Visit/Tour	NFP Visit	NFP Visit	NFP Lecture/Tour
Location	(1) Harold Washington Public Library	Green City Market (large local/organic farmer’s market)	Kuumba Lynx—dance/rap/poetry NFP supporting local youth	Center for Neighborhood Technology—Think tank for nonprofits.
	(2) Chicago Cultural Center
Transportation	Public (faculty led)	Walk	Walk	Public
Assignment/Topic	Reflect on city-based nonprofits and service.	Issues surrounding food communities—food desserts, sustainability, health.	Turning passion into purpose.	Nonprofits that help nonprofits?
Time	2:00-4:00	2:00-5:00			3:00-5:00
Activity	Walking Tour	NFP Visit			Wrap-Up
Location	Millennium Park, Michigan Avenue, Cloud Gate (the bean)	Lincoln Park Zoo—Free zoo			Classroom
Transportation	Walking	Walking			Public
Assignment	HW1: What is your definition of a nonprofit?	Write your own mission statement.	How small is too small?

Continuing with the broad-to-narrow visit methodology, over the course of the immersion week we attempt to visit approximately 10 or more nonprofit organizations or social enterprises representing as many community types as possible. In our course, broad community options have included a walking tour of “external” site visits like parks, a visit to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (including performance), The Chicago History Museum or the Museum of Science and Industry. More targeted and community specific visits focus student attention to topics that include food deserts and scarcity of resources, health and medical care, animal welfare, homeless populations, immigrant language and education, and youth programming such as poetry, graffiti art, and dance.

The actual nonprofit chosen is not the most important issue in designing the course. Too many classes try to focus only on one group, one topic, or even one area of sustainability (such as recycling). This narrow method ignores the opportunity to expose students to dozens of options thus providing a stronger, broader foundation of issues related to sustainability or “market orientation plus” (Hult, 2011). When a student finds an organization that they personally are moved by, their understanding and engagement makes a perceptible jump. Therefore, in addition to community types, we recommend choosing visits that showcase a large array of topics and organizational structures (from large to small). Depending on how many students you have in your course (we close the course at 22), increasing the variety of fields students are introduced to increases the probability that each will find something to which they can identify.

Despite organizational and population differences, the composition of each visit is similar. We suggest beginning with a facility tour if possible—even if it is just to expose students to what small versus large organizations may look like, or what various areas of the city or town appear to reflect. For example, we do a tour of a small organization that publishes a magazine that is sold by homeless individuals as a way for them to gain work experience and earn money. After the tour, students reflect on the fact that the facility is not fancy, and that the plethora of homeless individuals walking in and around the building was off-putting, but also note that the strong interaction between members of the targeted community and the actual social enterprise helps to reinforce the experiential aspect of the course and their understanding of need fulfillment. Facility tours should be immediately followed by a presentation by and discussion with a representative or expert from the organization (such as the director of programming), who talks with the students not only about how the organization supports its direct set of stakeholders, the organizational mission, vision, and purpose, but also about their personal story such as why they chose to work in this sector. The more connected the students become with the speaker and the organization, the more they can begin to see the value of their experience.

The second half of all visits should be a time of reflection and discussion that is tailored around the ideas of organizational stakeholders and the broader community (e.g., people), concepts of sustainability and or environmental support (e.g., planet), and marketing topics such as fundraising, sales, recruitment, entrepreneurship, and the marketing mix of the organization. To drive these discussions, we recommend employing a list of prompting questions as a base that can be repeated in various formats including orally after a visit is concluded, online in the form of discussion or chat postings where the students share their thoughts with the other students, or as a journal/reflective assignment that is more private. Table 3 showcases five question formats that have been very successful in stimulating learning of sustainability marketing topics; it also includes the goal/purpose of asking these questions.

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Table 3.

Five Useful Discussion/Reflection questions for Immersion Week Visits.

Question/discussion/reflection topic	Purpose/goal
What is the overall mission of the organization?	To gauge overall understanding of the breadth of impact of various organizations and why they were created. Explores reasons for development, marketing perspective, and perceived need fulfillment.
Who is the organization actually supporting/helping and how/why?	Do the students see a variety of outcomes stemming from this organization? Do they acknowledge the secondary or tertiary groups that the work impacts? Evaluates the concepts of market segmentation and targeting, market strategy, and need fulfillment.
How does the organization reach (market to) the various stakeholders (e.g., donors and recipients)?	Nonprofits have an additional challenge in that they have to engage not only end-users but also financial contributors—with the two groups often being accessible in completely opposite ways. Students should gain an understanding of these challenges in succeeding with the overall mission. Focuses attention on the marketing mix and how various strategies are more effective based on organizational focus and “customers.”
Where do the money/funding/volunteers come from?	Understanding the idea of financial obligations and procurement, in addition to management of a volunteer workforce, are key issues for many organizations both for and not-for profit. Can the students talk about these issues?
How successful/useful is the organization based on what you have seen and experienced.	This topic is used to judge student interest/involvement in each visit in addition to getting them to compare and contrast methods of running a variety of programs. Flexibility in thinking is an important factor in successful marketing strategy implementation.

A key feature to remember when planning and conducting the immersion program is that this intense time together sets the foundation for the subsequent quarter or semester-long class. The quality and selection of a broad slice of organizations coupled with rapport and relationship building creates a solid base from which theoretical and self-inspired learning occurs.

ISD Stage 2: The Classroom Experience

The first two steps suggested by the PROBE framework are the introduction of course-related concepts (those related to marketing and sustainable development) and the creation of programming that allows students to take an active role in defining and observing these concepts in practice. Though both of these are fulfilled during the immersion portion of the ISD class, reinforcement of topics, the development of theoretical and functional concepts, and a more thorough discussion of topics are still warranted. The second part of the ISD course capitalizes on the students’ immersive experiences with organizations, and focuses on the application of sustainable development to marketing planning and strategy over the span of a full semester/quarter.

Each 3-hour class session (meeting once a week) is divided into two parts. During the first half of class, students gain more exposure to how nonprofit organizations and social enterprises maintain a focus on basic market orientation concepts such as research, decision making, and advertising/outreach coupled with ecological (environmental), social (equity), and financial (economic) sustainability. The focus shifts away from community segmentation and support toward issues of development, management, and evaluation of the organizations. Again, focusing on people and organizations that use a sustainability paradigm at their core, we bring in social entrepreneurs and directors/managers from local nonprofit and outreach groups. Examples of these include the Director of Programming for a music therapy outreach program developed inside a juvenile detention facility, the head of fundraising and coordination for a social/education approach to supporting young male at-risk teens, the co-operators of a social enterprise supporting local craftsmen, and the developer of an Alzheimer’s fundraising program who built the nonprofit in remembrance of his grandmother. As these presentations occur in the classroom, students are given additional time to discuss and question the deliverance of services to targeted communities, fundraising and spending issues, and the successful implementation of marketing activities. An example spanning seven class sessions, including suggested assignments, is provided in Table 4.

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Table 4.

ISD Quarter/Semester Schedule and Assignment Example (7-Weeks supplied).

	Content/activity	Assignment
Week 1	Director of Storycatchers Theatre	Reflecting on immersion week—summary of learning. What do you still wish you knew or need to know? Which topics/issues were most impactful? Which orgs were successful and why?
	Review of Immersion Week Visits, Introduction to sustainable marketing concepts
Week 2
	Midwest Director of AmeriCorps	Staffing and outreach—controlling “employees” who mean well but aren’t paid. Consider and write 3-5 pages about volunteering, submit via D2L.
Week 3
	Co-Directors of Greenheart Chicago Social Enterprise	Read the Harvard Business Review (HBR) case called “For Profits and the Non-Profit World”. Compare and contrast with the social enterprise topics from today’s lecture. Post and discuss in online message board.
Week 4
	Male Youth Program Director—Youth Guidance Chicago	Marketing strategy—What did today’s speaker use to successfully implement his program in area public schools? What would you do differently?
Week 5	Founder, Maebell Ward Foundation (Alzheimer research)	Why do organizations fail if they mean to help? Should you start your own or work for others? Is tiny too small to succeed?
	Group work on nonprofit marketing plan
Week 6
	Founder/Director, Treehouse Cat/Dog Rescue	Fighting politics: Reflect on today’s speaker/discussion regarding the struggles of city politics and saving animals. Name three other potential conflicts that may impact YOUR NPI.
	Group work on nonprofit marketing plan
Week 7
	Director, Experimental Station	Are you a social entrepreneur? Read HBR on Social Entrepreneurship and discuss on D2L.
	Group work on nonprofit marketing plan

The second half of class tasks students with applying their newly learned knowledge to discussions of marketing mix implementation, marketing strategy and financial management. Working from a marketing plan structure, students conduct marketing research on communities they perceive as demonstrating unmet needs. Assignments are given where individuals explore the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) nonprofits must face in their development and maintenance. Students then conduct evaluations of mission statements and perform competitive analyses that include comparisons of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that may be fulfilling the same types of community needs. Specific issues related to sustainable development, such as how to maintain a focus on all three pieces of a triple bottom line, are of particular focus as students examine the marketing behaviors of organizations perceived to incorporate sustainable business methods.

All this work culminates in a final project; the creation and presentation of a marketing plan for a nonprofit or social enterprise of their own creation. Class time is devoted to idea development, with students working together to share and refine marketing strategy. In this final project, students need to demonstrate a significant understanding of how sustainability initiatives and ideals are a core piece of the broader marketing paradigm.

Additional Formats for Developing a Sustainability Marketing Perspective

Although run as one class at our university, we recognize that not all marketing departments have a schedule that lends itself to a two-stage (week-long immersion and full quarter/semester classroom course) format. This should not discourage faculty from developing a two-pronged course such as this, as the stages can quite easily be divided into separate classes and added to a broader hierarchical curriculum. An example would be to offer the immersion program during a summer or winter intercession followed by the classroom-style segment in the subsequent fall or spring session.

Another option would simply be to offer the in-class introduction/orientation to sustainable development in marketing course as a stand-alone program in the students’ sophomore or junior year. In addition to replacing the freshman-oriented class described here, this class could be offered later in a student’s curriculum, thus providing any marketing student an opportunity to learn more about the interaction between marketing and sustainability. This would be a desirable option for schools with a large transfer population, as those students would have missed the opportunity at the onset of their program.

We strongly encourage faculty to entertain the idea of creating additional courses such as the in-class option we have presented to build an entire area of focus for students to select. Where that is not an option, marketing departments should consider ways to incorporate a discussion of sustainability topics into all classes by adding cases, readings, examples, or discussion topics to expand on the UN’s call for additional education on issues related to sustainable development.

Course Overview

Appealing to freshmen and creating the “sustainability lens” by focusing on local community-supporting nonprofits and social enterprises is an excellent way to start students off on the path to effective awareness of marketing concepts and sustainable development issues. However, as a student’s knowledge of business theory, terminology, and strategy expands, marketing programs have the opportunity to bring forward a discussion of how these same issues are complicated by growth, partnerships, governments, borders, geopolitical regulations, organizational structure, and globalization. Thus, a significant difference between the ISD and GSD courses is the breadth of focus from where we study these issues. In the freshman course, we focus on building marketing knowledge and creating a lens of sustainable development through which they can view future courses. In the upper-level global issues in sustainable development (GSD) course, we move beyond a focus on smaller agencies toward larger expansive organizations with a broader international focus.

The GSD course challenges upper-level undergraduates to leverage the topic of sustainable development (the second suggestion made by the UN initiative) within the broader global context. Overlaying international marketing concepts with sustainable development terms, ideas, and problems allows students to grow from merely thinking about what sustainable development is in business, to how sustainable development functions within a globally operating enterprise. Therefore, the second course focuses on international marketing topics such as the global marketing mix, global channels and communications, and the political, legal, and regulatory environmental challenges associated with running and working for a large multinational organization.

The GSD course focuses on global organizations that operate within the borders of multiple nations are affected by a plethora of conflicting rules and ideologies, and often are tied to larger intergovernmental authorities. The focus of sustainable development is explored from various angles including the challenges of dealing with need-based response on a planetary scale, growing an organization from a grassroots local upstart to a multi-lingual service model, and the choice of aligning with or standing apart from world governments. Students in the GSD course come away with an understanding of global financial issues such as fundraising, spending, and profitability issues; the impact and influence of politics; an expanded and deeper view of the breadth of challenges ensnared in the implementation of sustainable development at different channel levels; and a perspective on international marketing strategy that builds on the their core business curriculum including their participation in the ISD class.

A second difference between the ISD and GSD courses is that in the freshman class (ISD) we keep the conceptualization fairly simple, using two terms—the catchall term nonprofit and social enterprises. In the globalized course (GSD) we recommend that students explore the entire span of potential sustainability-focused enterprises. This can mean scheduling interactions and projects with pure nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations, social enterprises, and for-profit firms who embrace a sustainability mindset. This broader and much more dynamic conceptualization speaks to the breadth of entities that make-up a broad list of organizations scattered around the globe that embrace everything from small rescue groups to universities and even financial institutions or centers for social entrepreneurship.

To accomplish the four course objectives of academic, personal, social, and career development (Eyler et al., 2001), the GSD course begins with classroom sessions that set the foundation for the topics to be explored. Students then participate in another immersion-style program, a short-term international business program (e.g., study abroad trip). Porth (1997) defines a study tour as “an academic course involving both traditional classroom learning and experiential learning opportunities in an international setting” (pp. 191-192). Roughly 94% of study abroad participants report being affected by their experience long after their return. These forms of programs often produce marketing students who are more prepared for work in a global marketplace and who have a higher appreciation for the intrinsic value of education (Hadis, 2005).

A secondary yet no less important feature of the globalized course is the focus on international marketing as a career. The course is meant to serve as a showcase and networking experience that features the availability of international opportunities for students with marketing degrees, especially those with strong foundations in sustainable development. For-profit opportunities to become an expatriate do exist; however, a stronger opportunity may be in the social service realm. A recent study by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies revealed “that nonprofit organizations are major employers and major sources of employment growth in countries throughout the world” (Newhouse, 2013). Research on student views of how prepared they are for international marketing careers that involved living and working in a foreign country found that most students did not feel they were well-trained or qualified (Turley & Shannon, 1999). In fact, in the same study, marketing students felt they were the least qualified group of students for careers in international marketing. Therefore, programs of this kind that introduce students not only to a functional area but also to the idea of expatriation are important for the future of marketing education.

Stage 1: Global Issues in Sustainable Development

The structure of the program is similar to the one presented by Koernig (2007). Students are required to attend four pretrip meetings where we begin the discussion of global communities in need, sustainability marketing concepts and ideas, and how international social service programs are designed and developed to support both. Although similar in nature to the ISD course, the material presented is at a significantly higher educational level. In these classes, students are presented with case studies and readings (see the appendix for a representative list) on international programming issues that help them to develop an idea of what global organizations are doing in terms of sustainable development. During these sessions students are tasked with conceptualizing a variety of political, cultural, and even linguistic challenges, in addition to issues captured in international marketing courses. We choose to have a heavy academic focus during these classes to allow for more time in-country to be spent on organizational visits and cultural activities (Koernig, 2007).

Stage 2: Global Immersion: Short-Term Intensive Marketing Program

After the completion of the classroom portion, students participate in a 10 to 14 day short-term study abroad program (SAP). Research has shown that students who participate in SAPs feel they are “more proficient, approachable, and open to intercultural communication” (p. 173), in addition to being more globally minded in comparison with their traditional campus counterparts (Clark, Flaherty, Wright, & McMillen, 2009). Organizational tours and meetings also help students better understand marketing concepts and increases active learning (Moncrief, Shipp, & Lamb, 1995; Gordon & Smith, 1992; Koernig, 2007).

Similar to the case made in the ISD course, the location of the trip is not as important as the structure of the program. Our course is held in Switzerland (Geneva and Zurich), which is a hotbed of global action including banking and finance, social entrepreneurship, and nonprofit agencies, but other cities and countries could easily be used. One example is Bangkok, Thailand, where the Red Cross houses its worldwide snake milking facility, other nonprofit groups have outreach offices, and there is a growing demand for social entrepreneurship as exemplified by the growth of conferences and start-ups in Thailand. We advise that to educate students about sustainable development, marketing educators find a location with a variety of options and opportunities.

The critical component for the GSD course is the selection of a variety of organizations whose work is affected by both a focus on sustainable development concepts and involvement/participation at a global level. Topics of interest could include global issues such as climate or pollution, public health and medicine, population and food, economic development, and/or humanitarian and refugee migration issues. Organizational structures should also span the breadth of options and include different formats such as multinational groups (e.g., UNICEF), grassroots organizations (e.g., Amnesty International), social enterprises (e.g., Social Business Earth), and for-profit firms (e.g., Schwab). Koernig (2007) suggests selecting “large, well-known companies” (p. 214) to maximize the impact on student learning. We have found that large organizations are also the only ones who have the physical space to host a large group. Every organization, in addition to supporting its philanthropic mission, must also manage its administrative components such as marketing and sales to be successful. Ensuring this variability allows for individual connections that foster learning and engagement, while also making the most of short-term exposure to the topic. An example of a successful schedule for this course is shown in Table 5.

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Table 5.

5-day Example of Global Sustainable Development On-site NPI Visits (Double or Triple for a Full Program).

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Time	9:00-11:00	9:00 -12:00	8:00-1:00	9:00-12:00	9:00-12:00
Activity	NPI Visit/Tour	NPI Visit/Lecture	NPI Visit/Lecture	NPI Visit/Lecture	NPI Visit/Lecture
Location	United Nations	Geneva Environmental Network including IISD and Antinea	World Wildlife Fund	Schwab Foundation	Amnesty International
Transportation	Public	Tram	Train to Gland	Public	Public
Topic/Assignment	The power and reach of the UN. And the problems?	Think tanks and the environment, better than business?	Conservation and education, how to become an expat.	Corporate social entrepreneurship—a new kind of model?	Grassroots and human rights, putting the power with the people.
Meal	CERN cafeteria	Balexert Mall	On own	On own	Group meal
Time	1:00-5:00	1:00-5:00	2:00-5:00	1:00-5:00	1:00-5:00
Activity	NFP Visit/Tour	NFP/Museum Visit	NFP Visit	NFP
Location	CERN	International Red Cross	UNICEF	International Peace Bureau	American Citizens Abroad
Transportation	Public	Public	Public
Assignment/Topic	Science and technology; country supported global benefits?	Balancing work with education—sustainable development as politics & culture?	Student Presentations. Real world application of sustainable development	The World, bombs and politics. How outreach and help is blocked and blunted?	What it means to be an expatriate? Is this for you?

Note. Additional visit recommendations: Medecins sans Frontiers, WHO, World Bank Sustainability Office, Zurich Tourism Office (NFP serving tourists), SEED, Social Business Earth, and Swissconnect. Cultural visits should also be a part: Chocolate making classes, local markets, walking tours of each city, universities as nonprofits, embassies, museums.

Each visit should be structured to cover a few key issues. Representatives are encouraged to speak to (a) what form the organization takes (nonprofit, social enterprise, for-profit with sustainability focus, etc.); (b) what the organization does (i.e., what is their focus/mission, who does it serve); (c) local, national, and global challenges experienced with their work in sustainable development; and (d) how they personally came to work in this field. At the end of the second program, students are challenged to strategically analyze the global organizations and businesses visited, completing a marketplace analysis of marketing and sustainable development issues. This includes evaluating the history/purpose/mission; the leadership structure, external influences on, or challenges to, the operation of the organization; funding including contributors and marketing methods; outreach including segmentation, targeting, and positioning; and finally personal reflections of each visits.

Course 1 (ISD) Graded Activities and Assessment

In addition to his description of the overall PROBE process, Nirenberg offers some suggestions in how to assess sustainability programs. Specifically, he calls for group-based assessment where teams reflect on course material and explain how it is related to various organizations. This should include such things as leadership issues, communication, acquiring funding, managing a budget, promoting the organization, measuring impact, and creating a marketing plan. Assessment should also be conducted on the quality of written work through formal and informal presentations, quizzes, and reflective assignments such as personal learning journals (Nirenberg, 1994).

Throughout this course we use personal journaling and reflective discussions to assess learning and tailor the program to student interests. One example is a series of online discussions. Questions can be about specific visits such as reflections on size of the organization, mission, or marketing impact factors. Another possibility is to use case studies on sustainable development and nonprofit strategic decision making. For example, we use Harvard Business Review cases that deal with the topic of social entrepreneurship, how for-profits are gaining strength in social service fields, and the struggle of nonprofits to successfully carry out their mission. A third option is to conduct various self-assessments to have students explore their own personal mission and perspective on sustainability topics, such as an assigned case and write-up entitled “Are you a Social Entrepreneur?” Specific questions asked, and representative answers, are provided in Table 6. Small 1- to 3-page writing assignments that are not shared with the other students ask individuals to “write your own marketing mission statement,” “define what a nonprofit means to you,” “what nonprofit organizations serve you,” and “profit or planet—which way should an organization focus.” These various thoughtful contributions can be used by the professor to assess not only student progress in terms of the curriculum, but the interests and processes with which they seem to most engage. Future discussions and examples can then be tailored, keeping the learning fresh and student driven.

The primary assessment tool in this course is the final project, where the students create their own nonprofit organization. Per PROBE’s suggestion, this process is done in a group setting with 3 to 5 people collaborating on the development of a marketing plan to include a specific, well-developed and researched focus, a creative and engaging name, a mission statement, list of primary stakeholders, and examples of how they would use the marketing mix to promote their organization (including things like pricing/budget/fundraising and promotional strategies). In addition, the students have to justify the sustainability perspective used to support or underscore their program. To select the group topic the class first writes individual journal entries about what they would do on their own given the chance to engage a personally relevant issue. The professor then takes these topics and identifies common themes such as animal welfare, children, medical issues, elderly care, LGBT issues, or environment, in addition to organizational structures such as an interest in creating a social enterprise, finally placing students with similar interests together. The ultimate goal is to allow students to work within the confines of their interests to keep the work student-driven and meaningful. The individual write-up is the first example of the students’ passion, while the final paper and presentation are representations of the groups’ ability to master marketing concepts and strategy, all underscored by issues of sustainable development.

Course 2 (GSD) Graded Activities and Assessment

Two different assessments can be used with the Global Sustainable Development course. The first way is to provide students the opportunity to work on a real project or program. We have had great luck in working with our partners to give students the experience of working on a real-time marketing effort at one of the organizations visited. If current projects are limited, a second option is to secure a completed marketing/sustainability project that students can work through. In either case, new project or previously completed, groups of students are provided with the topic during the predeparture meetings. Each team is tasked with evaluating marketing/sustainability issues through the completion of primary and secondary research, SWOT analysis, or global environmental analysis. Each group creates a short presentation depicting their suggestions or findings. The groups share their ideas during the pretrip meetings to help refine and polish their ideas so that during the trip they can successfully present their ideas to representatives of the host organization who then assess the strategies. Additional learning comes when the project manager presents the actual version of how the project was completed or resolved, thus helping the students to reframe and redirect their ideas of how a global organization actually functions. Recognizing that finding this level of cooperation may be difficult or rare, the same type of exercise can be done using a business case study on sustainable development. However, whenever possible, the engagement and feedback received from working with an actual organization is always preferred.

The second form of assessment used is a full marketing and sustainability assessment of each organization visited during the study abroad portion of the course. After returning from the trip, students are asked to review and reflect on their experiences and various features from each organization visited. Topics include the history and mission, leadership structure, external influences or of challenges to the groups operation, funding, outreach and marketing strategy, and finally their own personal perspective on the importance of a triple bottom line focus.