Using Macromarketing to Teach Business Sustainability

Abstract

The first macromarketing seminar held in 1976 represented a first attempt to “hack the system” of business schools to bring a societal focus to the teaching of marketing. This effort resulted eventually in macromarketing becoming a major field of the marketing discipline. Today, forces outside the business school are pointing business schools to broaden their curricula to include social responsibility in the form of macromarketing, sustainability, and marketing for a better world. The purpose of this article is to discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching macromarketing and sustainability concepts to business students so that more macromarketing managers would develop and exert their influence in marketplaces around the world. Important points include (a) the imperative for macromarketing-minded educators to advocate for curriculum changes in their own business schools, and (b) the need for macromarketing-minded educators to become more capable teachers of macromarketing and sustainability content with students more skeptical about such content. This article offers a constructivist approach to setting the stage for students engaging macromarketing and sustainability content for the first time. Embracing the paradox of managerial macromarketing and integrating experiential learning highlight this approach.

Keywords

macromarketing macromarketing pedagogy sustainability sustainability pedagogy business school curriculum responsible management education business sustainability

For the first 50 years of the 20th century, macromarketing had been the focus of the marketing discipline as researchers strove to better understand phenomena of aggregated markets, such as the role of middlemen in the efficiencies or inefficiencies of markets (Hunt et al., 2021). For example, many comparative marketing studies then sought to understand the provisioning advantages of planned economic systems (socialism) versus non-planned systems (capitalism) (Peterson, 2021).

During this era, economics strongly influenced marketing scholars (R. A. Mittelstaedt, 1990). But in the 1950s, the focus of marketing scholars began shifting to micro-level concerns of firm managers, such as understanding changing consumer preferences and how winning products could be fielded more effectively. Following this, the 1960s saw marketing scholars focus increasingly on issues germane to the managerial school of thought in marketing, as well as consumer behavior research.

However, in August 1976 at the University of Colorado at Boulder, 30 marketing academics met for a conference called “the macromarketing seminar” that dared to shift some marketing scholarship away from its current focus on the micro-level of the firm back to the macro-level of marketing systems and society (Hunt, 2020). Inspired by citizen movements (such as movements for civil rights, for consumer protection, and for environmental protection), the first macromarketers sought to bring a societal perspective into marketing thought to influence scholars, students, and practitioners:

Today’s challenge to marketing theoreticians and educators is the need to elevate the conception and practice of marketing to a higher—“larger”—level of management, from which greater benefits to society as a whole from marketing may be gained. (Bartels & Jenkins, 1977)

These first macromarketers stressed the need for macromarketing managers to have knowledge of (a) micromarketing practice and (b) the relationship of marketing to its social environment (Bartels & Jenkins, 1977, p. 20). In this way, these first macromarketers viewed the purpose of macromarketing to be, like all knowledge, to save the world from primitive thinking and its poor outcomes for humanity (Fisk, 2001).

The year 2021 marked the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Journal of Macromarketing in 1981 (Hunt, 2012). Founded before the emergence of firms that integrate environmental and social decisions into business decisions (such as Patagonia), and the crystallization of the sustainable development construct in the UN’s 1987 Brundtland Report, the journal has fulfilled a central aim of its founding editor George Fisk. Specifically, the journal has provided a forum to debate and clarify the role of marketing in society (Fisk, 1981).

This article is a “call to arms” for marketing teachers to teach managerial macromarketing in an era of sustainability and “better marketing for a better world” (Chandy et al., 2021). Toward this end, this article aims to show how macromarketing concepts can be used to integrate business sustainability into the business school curriculum. In this way, better marketing would be reinforced in practice so that a better world would develop. To do this, this article will highlight what managerial macromarketing offers students—a valuable combination of macro (societal) and micro (firm-level) perspectives for achieving success in changing markets.

Why Managerial Macromarketing Matters

Students learning managerial macromarketing would likely result in managers developing and exerting influence in marketplaces around the world for a broader set of stakeholders. Radford et al (2015) note that while some notable exceptions exist (such as Kilbourne, 2008 and Peterson, 2013), “little evidence suggests that macromarketing is being well integrated into core marketing curricula” (p. 467). Given the need for further integrating macromarketing knowledge into marketing curricula, not surprisingly, macromarketing pedagogy remains underdeveloped (Shapiro, 2012).

However, recent developments outside academia create new opportunity for marketing educators to integrate macromarketing into the marketing curricula. In addition to technological changes, Rust (2020) asserts that socioeconomic factors (such as diversity, inclusion, and income inequality) and major changes for the world (such as globalization versus protectionism, and climate change) are now radically transforming marketing. Alarmingly, marketing’s radical transformation from forces outside of markets—the focus of macromarketing—has little pedagogical research to guide educators about the benefits and challenges of integrating macromarketing into marketing education programs (Shapiro et al., 2020). This article addresses this glaring shortcoming for marketing educators.

To become oriented to concepts of macromarketing pedagogy, a set of definitions for such concepts would help the reader. Toward this purpose, Table 1 presents useful definitions for concepts of macromarketing pedagogy to teach business sustainability.

Table 1.

Concepts of Macromarketing Pedagogy.

Abductive Reasoning—the process of reasoning from data to an initial explanation or a preliminary diagnosis. Although fallible, such initial explanations eliminate unworkable explanations and allow an individual to more effectively reason in new situations and contexts
Business Sustainability 1.0—the first stage of pursuing sustainability when firms create shareholder value, but pursue sustainability-oriented endeavors to reduce costs and risk, as well as to market green products to segments now receptive to them. Refined shareholder-value management
Business Sustainability 2.0—the second stage of pursuing sustainability when firms broaden the stakeholder perspective and pursue the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. Triple-bottom-line management for creating social, environmental, and economic value
Business Sustainability 3.0—the third stage of pursuing sustainability when firms shift their business-centric focus to pursue systemic change in society’s wicked challenges, such as climate change, migration, corruption, water, poverty, pandemics, and inequality of various types
Conscious Capitalism—a movement among business persons who view a business as a community of persons working together to create value for others and all the stakeholders. Also, the name for a business simulation from Marketplace^® Simulations
Constructivist Learning—also called discovery learning where learners are not passive receptacles, but must work to create knowledge that fit their belief systems. Learners must challenge and investigate to make sense of new information. Social interaction and authentic tasks boost constructivist learning.
Dominant Social Paradigm—a materialist ideology whose essence is “more is better” and whose stance toward competitive markets is “if it works, it must be good.” For individuals, living beyond one’s means through the use of commercial debt is more likely for those living in a culture of shopping and consuming.
Double-loop Learning—occurs when actions are corrected after changing the values that govern such actions. A person asking why such a behavior is done and then modifying or changing one’s behavior to be more in line with one’s values (such as living with integrity or being other-oriented) would be an example of double-loop learning
Hacking the System—something one does when exasperated by the current arrangement of things to change such an arrangement. For example, figuring out a way to move from being excluded to being included in a social system (from being marginalized to being part of a favored social group)
Macromarketing—a systems-oriented approach to understanding the interplay between marketing and society
Micromarketing—a firm-centric view of how firms succeed in the marketplace with their customers. The dyad of buyer and seller assumes utmost importance.
Managerial Macromarketing—a firm-centric view of how firms succeed in the marketplace by integrating societal issues (environmental and social) issues into firm decision-making. Firms that take such an approach must make sustainability a strategic priority so that the functional areas of the firm contribute to creating value for society, as well as profits
New Environmental Paradigm—an ideology emphasizing the interdependency of humans with the natural environment. It asserts that humanity can disrupt the balance of nature, and therefore limits to economic growth must be adopted.
Stakeholders—those who have a stake or an interest in the activities that comprise a business. Without the support of primary stakeholders, a firm would likely cease to exist. These include society and communities, partners, investors, customers, and employees. Secondary stakeholders matter to a business, but often not as crucially as primary stakeholders. These include nongovernmental organizations, competitors, government, future generations, and the environment, as well as media

Because of macromarketing’s societal perspective (taking a systems view of the interplay among marketing, markets, and society; Hunt, 2020), its underutilization bodes poorly for marketing becoming a professional discipline with obligations to society—the ultimate client of the marketing academy (Hunt, 2014, pp. 55–56, 60). Failure to integrate societal issues into marketing curricula will bring increasing irrelevance for the field (Holbrook, 2005). This is a primary reason for macromarketing to be regularly integrated in the research of marketing scholars, as well as the teaching of marketing.

In the 1950s, business schools in the United States followed a trade-school model until the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation leveled criticism at the lack of rigor in business schools’ curricula (Schlegelmilch, 2020). After the 1950s, business schools integrated scientific rigor in its research and classroom content. Yet, tension about going beyond a focus on job-related tasks for future graduates has not subsided in business schools.

But consider how technical drawing or drafting remains a skill area, rather than an academic discipline. Sadly, those practicing drafting have become vulnerable to the latest computer innovation that increasingly renders such work as automatable—for robots and machines, rather than humans. Management education should be broad and not adopt a narrow functional specialization (Thomas et al., 2013, p. 92). Problems encountered by leaders in business are not only frequently complex but also characterized by paradox and ambiguity. Accordingly, business persons need to develop holistic thinking—which the study of macromarketing can boost. In particular, business persons need to move from a firm-centric view of business toward network and ecological perspectives (Schoemaker, 2008).

The urgency for shifting from a firm-centric view of business can be seen in the way technology has given consumers tremendous agency when evaluating products and services directly without the mediation of marketers and their sponsored messaging (Belk, 2020). Consumers can watch other consumers’ haul videos or YouTube videos on how to use a product, as well as review online rating sites, such as TripAdvisor. Another trend that has made marketing efforts of firms less important are the use of Big Data, analytics, and algorithms that turn Google and Facebook data on consumers into increasingly accurate ways to target consumers without traditional advertising campaigns in mainstream media.

In sum, technological changes (such as artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, the internet, and the expansion of networks) are making the 1960s-style 4 Ps increasingly obsolete (Rust, 2020). A different way of thinking about the increasing complexity of market activity is needed that would focus on underlying structures, rather than just the symptoms observed in such complex contexts. Systems thinking is such a different way of thinking about complexities and interdependencies (Beitelspacher & Rodgers, 2018). It can be employed to better understand the role of marketing systems in markets of the 21st century, such as business ecosystems that would frequently include agentic consumers and networked stakeholders. Macromarketing integrates a systems approach to explaining market-related phenomena related to the mutual influence between marketing and society (Hunt et al., 2021). If business schools remain focused narrowly on the 4 Ps in the teaching of marketing from a bygone era, it could it be déjà vu all over again for marketing.

The Connection Between Macromarketing and Business Sustainability

Macromarketing

Hunt et al. (2021) assert that macromarketing is a pillar of marketing thought and that macromarketing has now institutionalized itself as a major field of study in the field of marketing. Macromarketing holds significant promise for the marketing discipline in the future because of its links to the earliest scholarship in marketing that took a macro view of marketing. This makes macromarketing inherently a field of marketing (unlike other fields that emerged much later, such as consumer behavior and marketing analytics).

In contrast to limiting the focus of marketing to the firm and its customers as would be done in micromarketing, macromarketing focuses on a higher level of aggregation. According to Hunt (2014, p. 14), macromarketing refers to the study of (a) marketing systems, (b) the impact of marketing systems on society, and (c) the impact of society on marketing systems. Wroe Alderson developed early thought about marketing systems and proposed that ecology held more promise than economics for developing marketing science in both descriptive and normative terms (Alderson, 1964, p. 93). Alderson made such a proposal because he viewed marketing activity as being about accelerating or delaying culture change—especially with regard to material culture embodied in exchangeable products.

Macromarketing takes a systems view of the interplay between marketing and society (Nason, 2006). Traditionally, phenomena that connect with one of the following categories of research have much potential for development in macromarketing: (a) quality of life, (b) ethics, (c) the environment, (d) marketing systems, (e) history, and (f) developing countries (Peterson, 2013, p. 19).

Over the years, macromarketing discourse about sustainability has included recurring critiques of consumption ideology. Two differing perspectives on recommended approaches to sustainability challenges for societies have emerged (Prothero & McDonagh, 2020). Critical scholars in macromarketing tend to favor top-down government-driven approaches, whereas developmental scholars tend to see markets as sources of solutions to sustainability challenges. As can be imagined, these two schools have brought spirited debate to macromarketing (J. D. Mittelstaedt et al., 2014).

Business Sustainability

Dyllick and Muff (2016) proposed a typology of business sustainability based on a systematic analysis of different approaches in the literature. Beginning with “business as usual,” the focus of firms would be strictly on economic concerns (reducing costs, making processes more efficient, and striving for a stronger market position). Defensiveness or regulatory compliance characterizes firms’ responses to calls for increased responsibility for the impact of firms’ behavior on the environment and society.

Business Sustainability 1.0 is the first stage of introducing sustainability concepts when firms recognize that new challenges now come from external stakeholders, such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), media, public policy, and legislation (Dyllick & Muff, 2016). Business objectives for the firm remain clearly focused on creating shareholder value, but firms pursue sustainability-oriented endeavors to reduce costs and risk, as well as to market green products to segments now receptive to them. In this way, Business Sustainability 1.0 represents refined shareholder-value management.

Business Sustainability 2.0 is the stage of sustainability when firms broaden the stakeholder perspective (Dyllick & Muff, 2016) and pursue the triple bottom line (TBL) of people, planet, and profit (Elkington, 2018). Instead of firms creating value for customers and shareholders, firms deliberately define goals and programs addressing specific sustainability issues or stakeholders. Business Sustainability 2.0 goes beyond refined shareholder-value management to TBL management for creating social, environmental, and economic value.

Business Sustainability 3.0 is the stage when firms shift their business-centric focus to pursue systemic change in society’s wicked challenges, such as climate change, migration, corruption, water, poverty, pandemics, and inequality of various types (Dyllick & Muff, 2016). Firms here look outside themselves and seek to alleviate suffering and injustice using the competencies and resources these firms possess.

Firms in Business Sustainability 3.0 see themselves as responsive citizens of society and function in a similar way as social businesses—where increasing profits would not necessarily be the top priority of managers of these firms (Dyllick & Muff, 2016). Such firms would work collaboratively in their industry or across industries to change the rules of the game so that sustainability flourishes more richly by (a) creating transparency, (b) sharing best practices, and (c) helping to define common rules and standards. Business Sustainability 3.0 represents truly sustainable business. Firms such as outdoor-garment brand Patagonia (Chouinard, 2016) and some Benefit or B Corporations (Marquis, 2020) could be said to be in Business Sustainability 3.0.

Interestingly, the structure of corporate governance appears to influence the degree to which firms align their activities with the interests of stakeholders (Tibiletti et al., 2021). Firms with larger boards are less likely to involve stakeholders more closely in firm activity. Also, with more internal directors, firms are more likely to have higher environmental and governance performance (Crifo et al., 2019). Notably, Patagonia is a privately held company (Chouinard, 2016). An inference here could be that a broader set of external directors tends to advocate for a traditional emphasis on the growth of profits for the firm in the near term, as opposed to deferred profitability as firms figure out how to transition to sustainable business practices.

Summary About the Connection Between Macromarketing and Business Sustainability

Both macromarketing and business sustainability take a broader view of marketplace activity rather than fixating on the dyad of buyer and seller. Macromarketing is a subdiscipline of marketing that focuses on relationships between firms and stakeholders (Freeman et al., 2021). Similarly, ecology focuses on relationships between organisms and their environment (Hawken, 2007, p. 230). Higher levels of aggregation become important in macromarketing (marketing systems) and in ecology (ecosystems). Importantly, both macromarketing and business sustainability overlap in their interest in the impact of business activity on the natural environment. Teaching of managerial macromarketing in business schools would highlight how intelligently designed marketing systems can have less negative impact on the natural environment.

Forces for Changing the Business School Curriculum

As previously noted, macromarketing content warrants much more integration into marketing curricula due to a world now under transformation because of forces external to the firm, such as technological, sociocultural, and geopolitical forces (Rust, 2020). But still both macromarketing and business sustainability content struggle to find a place in business curricula (Kemper, Hall, & Ballantine, 2019). However, things may change. Forces that may lead to curriculum change for business schools include (a) recent revisions to accreditation standards for business schools and (b) market demand for sustainability content from students.

Revised Accreditation Standards

The 2013 version of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB, 2018) standards identified social responsibility (including approaches to management, such as sustainability, diversity, and ethical behavior) as a general business knowledge area for a business school’s curriculum (Standard 9) . However, the 2020 Guiding Principles and Standards for Business Accreditation does not include explicit knowledge areas and mentions social responsibility twice—in the philosophy statement about accreditation and in the introduction to AACSB accreditation. In other words, the 2020 AACSB Standards appear to weaken any focus on sustainability by removing social responsibility (and its subareas) from being a trackable knowledge area for business school curricula.

At the same time, the preamble to the 2020 Guiding Principles and Standards for Business Accreditation of the AACSB asserts that the AACSB will encourage and accelerate innovation for the continuous improvement of business education and that as a result business education will have a positive impact on business and society (AACSB, 2020). The AACSB’s vision is that business and business schools are a force for good, contributing to the world’s economy and to society.

Upon closer review of the AACSB’s 10 guiding principles, “societal impact” of business schools depends on how the school defines its positive contribution to society in its mission and strategic plan. Accordingly, a business school resisting change could define its societal impact as developing competent graduates in business disciplines and ignoring the integration of societal concepts related to macromarketing and sustainability.

The implication here is that faculty interested in having a top-down integration of macromarketing and sustainability into the curriculum need to be strategic in their own approach by engaging their business school’s leadership about the benefits of curriculum development. In sum, rather than sustainability being part of the expected standard (mandate) for a business curriculum as a general knowledge area of social responsibility (as in AACSB’s 2013 standards; AACSB, 2018), it now can be included in the curriculum based on whether a business school includes it in its mission statement or strategic plan (as in AACSB’s 2020 standards).

The likely reason for such an integration of macromarketing and sustainability into the curriculum would be the perceived contribution to the marketplace viability for the business school from curriculum content related to sustainability. In this way, the AACSB’s 2020 standards reinforce what Landrum and Ohsowski (2017) term “weak sustainability” in that sustainability efforts are focused on the business case for competitiveness. In the Dyllick and Muff’s (2016) typology of business sustainability, such weak sustainability would correspond to firms and organizations in Business Sustainability 1.0—refined shareholder-value management.

Despite language about the societal impact of business and business education in the 2020 AACSB standards, market demand for social-responsibility content (that would include sustainability, ethics, and macromarketing) is left up to the leadership of individual business schools. Such a contingency for the inclusion of social-responsibility content in business school curricula reflects the most prominent worldview communicated in corporate sustainability reports—business benefits drive corporate sustainability (Landrum & Ohsowski, 2018).

Like the AACSB, the other worldwide accreditation body—the EFMD’s European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS)—has included sustainability in its assessment criteria (Fisher & Bonn, 2017). EQUIS requires a business school to show evidence of having a clear understanding of being a globally responsible citizen (EQUIS, 2016, p. 64).Like the AACSB standards, EQUIS relies on broad principles and frameworks that business schools could use to tailor their sustainability efforts to their mission and to their capabilities. Each school can interpret the EQUIS standards differently and must rely on the support of individual faculty members to meet these self-interpreted standards (Maloni et al., 2012).

The Association of MBAs (AMBA) based in London is a worldwide accreditation organization focused on graduate management education (AMBA, 2021). While not requiring a separate module of instruction in an MBA program for its 13 major areas of knowledge which underpin general management, the AMBA includes the following as one of its 13 major areas of knowledge: “an understanding of the impact of sustainability, ethics and risk management on business decisions and performance, and on society as a whole” (AMBA, 2016). As with the AACSB and EQUIS, the AMBA criterion for sustainability in the curriculum of a business school is broad and subject to the interpretation of each business school’s leaders.

Market Demand for Sustainability Content

The world outside the business school continues to change, and society increasingly expects graduates of business schools to possess a broader sense of social purpose (Uncles, 2018). Consider just a few developments in recent years that have direct impact on what students now learn in a business school:

In 2019, 181 CEO-members of the Business Roundtable signed the Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation and committed to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders—customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders (Business Roundtable, 2019).

In 2020, the response to the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the role of frontline workers who must incur health risks because they actually have to show up for their jobs for society to function (such as janitors, garbage collectors, truck drivers, and workers in hospitals, grocery, and retail stores) (Tomer & Kane, 2020).

In 2021, General Motors announced that by 2035 it would phase out production of petroleum-powered cars and trucks—selling only vehicles that have no tailpipe emissions (Boudette & Davenport, 2021).

Schlegelmilch (2020) makes a strong case for curriculum change in business schools because the demand for sustainability learning makes the case for business schools’ adoption of radical innovations. The recent Tomorrow’s MBA survey of prospective MBAs across 21 countries supports Schlegelmilch’s assertion, as these future students chose responsible and ethical leadership as their top curriculum priority for business schools they would consider (BizEd, 2020).

The type of curriculum change Schlegelmilch envisions includes a fundamental widening of the focus of business schools from just generating financial value for the firm. More debate and discussion about the purpose of the enterprise in courses offered by business schools will have to take place. Rather than merely adding specialized courses in corporate social responsibility or sustainability, Schlegelmilch sees faculty needing to adopt more holistic viewpoints about the social value created or degraded by businesses.

Again, the Tomorrow’s MBA survey supports Schlegelmilch’s assertion (BizEd, 2020). “Future students tend to see responsible leadership as a fundamental aspect that runs through business education teaching and research, not as a specialist add-on or elective,” author of the Tomorrow’s MBA survey Andrew Crisp said. “Prospective students are demanding content outside the confines of the traditional MBA. You can summarize the current MBA market in two words: accelerating change.”

Because business schools are reviewed for accreditation every 5 years, macromarketing-minded faculty need to volunteer for strategic planning task forces to shape their business school’s mission for explicitly including societal thinking or sustainability. In this way, such faculty members become institutional entrepreneurs (Kemper et al., 2020a). The average tenure of deans at AACSB-accredited schools is 5.9 years (BizEd, 2018). What new dean does not initiate a strategic planning process? Putting the occurrence of these two events together, the mission and strategic plan of a business school likely will receive task-force revision about every 3 years. This is a rich opportunity for successful system hacking by institutional entrepreneurs that would result in the integration of macromarketing and sustainability content into a business school’s curriculum.

Anticipating the Future: What If the Business School Curriculum Changes?

Despite evidence for the world outside business schools rapidly changing (Rust, 2020), business school leadership and faculty members are likely to regard macromarketing and sustainability education like corporate executives of firms in Business Sustainability 1.0 would regard green or conservation initiatives for the firm. Such initiatives are valuable to the extent that they make the business school more viable in a competitive marketplace (rather than valuable based on moral grounds for what such initiatives might mean to stakeholders of the business school).

Minority influence research from psychology suggests that macromarketing-minded faculty acting as institutional entrepreneurs will succeed in persuading business schools to integrate content for a better world if their calls for such action remain distinct and consistent over time (Gardikiotis, 2011). According to the genetic model of minority influence (Moscovici, 1976), social influence is about negotiating social conflicts. In a process of innovation, a consistent minority challenges the status quo so that uncertainty results. In this way, the consistent minority makes itself known. Such a minority proposes another way of doing things. After making such a proposal, it confidently demonstrates how such an alternative could succeed in practice. Eventually, the majority can shift and adopt the perspective of the consistent minority to resolve the dissonance and tension created by the consistent minority’s proposal. This looks very much like what hacking the system could look like in practice.

Should such system hacking succeed and business schools embrace more content focused on Business Sustainability 2.0 (firms managing the TBL) and 3.0 (firms pursuing systemic action to create value for the common good), macromarketing-minded faculty would likely confront a new challenge—educating more students who are not already sold on the merits of macromarketing and sustainability.

According to Diffusion of Innovations Theory (Rogers, 1995), an innovator group of consumers (about 3% of consumers in the market) seeks and tries a typical new product earlier in time than other consumer segments. Most business schools have introduced at least one course dedicated to sustainability (Parris & McInnis-Bowers, 2017). Because macromarketing and sustainability education is innovative content in the business school, those who have taught it likely have taught classes comprised mostly of such innovative student-consumers. If macromarketing and sustainability courses become more mainstream, teachers will encounter more heterogeneous classes in terms of worldviews about responsible approaches to marketing and attitudes toward the risks such approaches bring to managers. In short, there will be more students in classes with macromarketing and sustainability content that are reticent about these topics. A similar situation has occurred at traditionally run firms that transition to emphasizing sustainability, such as Unilever (Bhattacharya & Polman, 2017). There is a large swath of the workforce that begins the transition as undecided about the pursuit of sustainability.

After the system is hacked, most of the students coming into classes for macromarketing and sustainability will likely be like those business-school leaders and faculty members who previously regarded such content as acceptable—but only if it boosts market viability for the business school. Only now, many students will want their job-market viability enhanced. Like the enlightened leaders of firms that have successfully transitioned to emphasizing sustainability, effective teachers of macromarketing and sustainability should highlight the favorable financial outcomes that can come from pursuing sustainability (Eccles et al., 2014) from the outset of the course—and return to this theme regularly.

Currently, firms struggle with evaluating business students’ competencies regarding environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and are having their human resources professionals develop ways to measure them (Penty & Solomon, 2020). Until firms catch up with a shift to prioritizing diversity and sustainability, the market payoff for learning macromarketing and sustainability will not be evident to students. This is a reason for macromarketing-minded faculty to be change agents in their business schools—they will learn about the social-influence processes they will need in teaching the macromarketing and sustainability courses.

These courses will succeed in a variety of ways if faculty teaching such courses approach them as educational endeavors to be done with students, rather than as indoctrination projects targeting students (Kauchak et al., 1978). Teachers encouraging critical thinking that students do for themselves will likely find success as they design and conduct classroom learning to have students reflect upon and to question concepts about traditional marketing and consumer culture (Bailin & Siegel, 2002; Kemper, Ballantine, & Hall, 2019).

In allowing students to make up their minds about debatable issues, teachers will boost the double-loop learning for students that enables students to make decisions outside of the class using values and ways of thinking developed in the course (Argyris, 2002). Double-loop learning occurs when actions are corrected after changing the values that govern such actions. A person asking why such a behavior is done and then modifying or changing one’s behavior to be more in line with one’s values (such as living with integrity or being other-oriented) would be an example of double-loop learning. In sum, respecting students’ freedom of conscience regarding societal issues should be part of macromarketing pedagogy so that classroom learning remains part of a students’ education for navigating the years ahead, rather than indoctrination for the duration of a course.

Managerial Macromarketing Teachers—Rebels With a Cause

A paradox occurs when something combines contradictory features or qualities (Merriam-Webster, 2021). Paradox theory in management posits that contradictions between interdependent elements are ubiquitous, such that resulting tensions between various aspects that seem logical in isolation appear absurd and irrational when they are simultaneously present (Hahn et al., 2018).

One example of such a paradox might be sustainable marketing (Kemper, Ballantine, & Hall, 2019). Some environmentalists view marketing as antithetical to sustainability because of marketing’s long-running focus on increasing consumption and serving corporate interests. In a similar way, some marketers might view environmental concerns as antagonistic to improving their firm’s shareholder value. Yet, marketing done mindfully with sustainability principles not only occurs (Peterson, 2021), but could become the defining characteristic of marketing this century (Achrol & Kotler, 2012). Indeed, macromarketing thought-leader Cliff Shultz (Peterson, 2013, p. xvii) has asserted “the future of marketing is macromarketing.”

Managerial macromarketing that combines the macro-level perspective of the common good in the micro-level decision-making of firm leaders would fulfill Shultz’s idea of marketing’s future. However, some thought leaders in macromarketing’s first decades regarded managerially relevant content not macromarketing (Nason, 2006). In short, managerial macromarketing appeared unachievable because of the conceptual differences between macro (societal) and micro (firm) values. However, a step in the further institutionalization of macromarketing occurred in 2013 with the publication of Sustainable Enterprise: A Macromarketing Approach (Peterson, 2013). This textbook adopted a managerial macromarketing approach that advocated a market-based approach to sustainability by giving preference to innovation and entrepreneurship in firms’ social responsibility, rather than government intervention to address environmental and social concerns (Reppel, 2012). In this way, the textbook includes a unique macromarketing focus. The second edition of this textbook is Sustainable Marketing: A Holistic Approach (Peterson, 2021).

Researchers have noted the opposing paradigms in the life of business schools today with the priority given to consumption in the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) set against the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) that emphasizes the interdependency of humans with the environment (Kemper et al., 2020b). In the global survey of Kemper et al.’s study, marketing teachers posted a lower average score on a 5-point NEP scale (M = 3.58) compared with scientists (3.94), as well as to other academics in higher education. Given marketing academics’ lower level of environmental concern compared with other academics in this global survey and the tiny fraction of content in top marketing journals that is related to sustainability, it appears that the NEP’s counterweight to the DSP is currently weak. This suggests that teachers of managerial macromarketing would be rebels—but more specifically, rebels with a cause.

An Approach for Teaching Managerial Macromarketing

“It Ain’t Easy Being Green”

The TBL juxtaposes the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability, but does not systematically address the relationship between these dimensions. An emerging integrative view in management (Hahn et al., 2015) stresses the need for simultaneous integration of these dimensions without emphasizing one over the other, a priori. The integrative view proposes that management acknowledge tensions that arise in pursuing corporate sustainability and seek acceptance and resolution strategies.

Firms encounter tension from simultaneously pursuing the three dimensions of the TBL, but also from four other pairs of opposing forces. Specifically, these are (a) workers’ personal agendas for sustainability versus organizational agendas for sustainability, (b) short-term versus long-term orientations for management, (c) status quo orientation in the organization versus an innovation orientation, and (d) efficiency of the firm’s systems versus resilience of these systems. With these tensions increasing or decreasing at different rates and interacting with each other, one can grasp the staggering amount of complexity that likely comes with a firm’s pursuit of sustainability.

Rather than ignore these tensions which might be done by those adopting a strong form of the DSP or by others adopting a strong form of the NEP, macromarketing educators will want to have students examine issues more deeply and to gain new respect for business done with society in mind (Radford et al., 2015). Managerial macromarketing in the pursuit of sustainability represents a middle ground (Reppel, 2012), but like any financially viable effort by businesses in pursuit of sustainability, it requires insight and wisdom to execute well (Hoffman, 2018).

Research suggests that creativity (the generation of ideas that are both original and useful) is a process that involves tensions among competing goals and demands (Shao et al., 2019). Teachers can design classroom activities to encourage student creativity by structuring activities that result in tension among competing goals. For example, teachers staging three-way debates in class based on cases focused on firms pursuing sustainability and encountering challenges would be an effective way to engage students more deeply about the inherent tensions coming from having not one bottom line—but three. For example, the teacher could assign one-third of students to advocate for the firm doing more for the environment, another team advocating for the firm doing more for social concerns, and a third team advocating for growing profits or merely just paying the bills for the firm and breaking even. For teachers seeking more classroom fireworks, staging similar debates and having groups of students represent different stakeholders could be especially insightful for students to perceive the challenges of firm leaders in a multistakeholder world (Laczniak & Shultz, 2021).

Constructivist Learning

Given the complexity of learning macro and micro concepts of marketing, and the messy results of tensions arising for firms pursuing responsible marketing, new students in classes integrating macromarketing and sustainability will have many concepts to learn and much about which to decide for themselves because macromarketing and sustainability remain contested areas (Kalamas Hedden et al., 2017; Shapiro et al., 2020). Accordingly, a constructivist learning approach requiring the active involvement of learners in constructing knowledge for themselves will be useful for learning macromarketing and sustainability (Seatter & Ceulemans, 2017). Students would learn new ideas (e.g., the stakeholder concept) and modify or abandon other ideas (e.g., the sole reason for a business existing is profit-making) in such a constructivist approach.

Although there are variations in what is meant by constructivist learning, scholars generally agree about four aspects of constructivist learning (Cooperstein & Kocevar-Weidinger, 2004; Good & Brophy, 1994). First, learners construct their own meaning and are not passive receptacles of information. Learners must work to make sense of information coming to them so that it can fit their belief systems—or be used to change their belief systems (Löbler, 2006). Second, new learning builds on prior knowledge. Learners must compare and question old beliefs and information so that they can know what to accept or discard to progress. Third, learning is enhanced by social interaction. Learners attempt to resolve conflicting ideas. Social interaction, such as small-group discussion, gives students the chance to vocalize current versions of their knowledge and learn from others. Fourth, meaningful learning develops through authentic tasks. Such tasks can be activities chosen to simulate those that will likely be encountered outside the classroom.

Abductive Reasoning

Abductive reasoning (focused on generating plausible explanations, rather than certain explanations, as in deductive reasoning; Behfar & Okhuysen, 2018) is at the heart of such constructivist learning because old ways of understanding no longer connect when the student considers the world using the lens of marketing systems and society. When confronting macromarketing issues, students need to make sense of ambiguous situations (Lundberg, 2000) related to whether integrating environmental and social issues into firm decision-making could actually work for firms, as well as society. Abductive reasoning becomes crucial in figuring out (at least, provisionally) what can be done in such situations (Dew, 2007).

In teaching managerial macromarketing, students move to the frontier of sustainability knowledge and must imagine how marketing and society could be different, if things changed in a certain way. This is because most firms have not fully embraced sustainable business practices beyond those that increase the firm’s profits (such as energy and water conservation that reduce a firm’s expenses, as previously discussed as Sustainability 1.0) and because most business schools have lagged in integrating sustainability into the business curriculum (Anastasiadis et al., 2021).

Abduction looks for anomalies in data (Belk, 2020), such as how businesses have outcomes for society that are surprisingly negative (e.g., vaping) or positive (e.g., pandemic responses). To develop a preliminary diagnosis, persons must rule out unlikely explanations and gather new evidence while continuing to evaluate newly generated explanations (Behfar & Okhuysen, 2018). In this way, the essential role of a reasoning person (as opposed to a disinterested scholar) in exploration can be understood. Here, flashes of insight and hunches become part of abductive reasoning.

To boost abductive reasoning, students should develop a firm grasp on the major concepts of macromarketing to evaluate specific beliefs, claims, or actions (Bailin & Siegel, 2003) related to managerial macromarketing. Accordingly, content about marketing systems and their role (positive and negative) in society would be essential for marketing students moving into the study of sustainability for firms (Shapiro et al., 2020). Other essential content knowledge to boost abductive reasoning would be the current and possible roles in society for (a) marketing, (b) stakeholders, (c) business, and (d) the state, as well as controversies related to globalization and consumer behavior. On this foundation, teachers could add content related to environmental and social concerns.

Preparing for Abductive Reasoning

Sustainable Marketing: A Holistic Approach, 2nd edition (Peterson, 2021) offers such a structure to ground students in macromarketing. In this way, students can be better prepared to use abductive reasoning and imagination to generate plausible explanations about how firms can pursue sustainability across different industries. A theme of entrepreneurship and corporate innovation runs through the chapters of the book emphasizing the possibilities for firms to become more sustainable firms by addressing environmental and social issues (Hermann & Bossle, 2020).

Another textbook for consideration in a managerial macromarketing course would be Sustainable Marketing, 3rd edition (Dahlstrom & Crosno, 2022). The seven appendices of this textbook present descriptive overviews about macro-level energy consumption. Teachers could tack into one of the appendices for a macro view about one aspect of energy consumption and then tack out to one of the chapters which give a micro-level treatment of issues related to firm decision-making regarding (a) strategic planning, (b) promotion, (c) supply chain, and (d) sustainability reporting.

Vicarious and Experiential Learning

Social learning theory (Bandura,1977) classifies learning into two types: vicarious and reinforcement. In vicarious learning, observation of others is done. As a result of such observation, mistakes can be better avoided (Lam et al., 2010). Individuals can also learn from the outcomes of their actions which is called reinforcement. They are likely to do more of what works for them and less of what does not work for them. Such reinforcement learning is also called experiential learning (Huber, 1991).

Vicarious learning can frequently be observed in a constructivist approach to learning because constructivist learning often begins with a question, a problem, or a case (Cooperstein & Kocevar-Weidinger, 2004). The Macromarketing Society’s Pedagogy Place provides cases and links to macromarketing teaching materials (http://pedagogy.macromarketing.org/) (Shapiro et al., 2020). This is a very encouraging development for macromarketing pedagogy and represents another step in the institutionalization of macromarketing (Hunt, 2020). Cases related to UN’s Sustainable Development Goals can offer rich learning about how firms can work for the common good, as well as how to join others in learning and sharing how to do this (Shapiro et al., 2020).

Reinforcement or experiential learning can reflect a constructivist approach to learning when students tackle a comprehensive, computer simulation (Farrell, 2020). Here, student learning is situated in the context of a fictional business that is representative of existing firms. As a result, students confront many of the tasks business professionals would in the course of their work. Students regard such simulations as bringing them opportunities for reflection, as well as real-world applicability. Reflection and critical thinking are crucial ingredients to effective experiential learning (Peltier et al., 2005).

A valuable experience for students learning macromarketing and sustainability is the Conscious Capitalism business simulation by Marketplace Simulations (https://www.marketplace-simulation.com) (Cadotte, 2016). Sequenced toward the end of a macromarketing and sustainability course, this simulation not only integrates the sustainability dimension into the play of each round, but also allows students to feel the multiple tensions managerial macromarketers would experience in launching and operating a bicycle manufacturing business on a global scale. A Conscious Capitalism score for each team generated by the simulation allows students and teachers to gauge the effectiveness of each team regarding environmental and social concerns. The simulation is web-based and is able to pit student teams against each other or against a set of teams played by the algorithms of Conscious Capitalism.

Experiential learning theory proposes that reflection after an experience is essential to meaningful learning (Kolb & Kolb, 2009). Having a question for students to discuss fully in their team’s report about their play of the simulation, such as “what were the major concepts learned about sustainable business practices,” can lead to rich reflection that is so important in experiential learning.

Teachers can go beyond cases and simulations when using experiential learning. For example, student teams can serve as consultants to firms and non-profits (Radford et al., 2015). Teachers should use their creativity and imaginations in developing challenging experiential learning. For example, an innovative project for students to crystalize their learning about macromarketing and sustainability concepts is the Rap Video Project in which students script their own poetry about a topic in macromarketing and produce a 3-min video featuring their rap (Peterson, 2018).

Summary About Teaching Managerial Macromarketing

In sum, a class combining a comprehensive treatment of macromarketing content can boost learning by improving students’ abilities to develop abductive reasoning skills for developing plausible explanations when problem-solving in the ambiguous situations faced by firms pursuing sustainability today. As part of learning managerial macromarketing, students must assess their own attitudes and beliefs about the interplay of marketing and society. Because such learning would be focused on critical thinking—rather than indoctrination—students must make up their own minds about the degree to which firms can adopt managerial macromarketing. An experiential learning project, such as the Conscious Capitalism, can make the tensions involved in pursuing multiple goals for a sustainability-oriented business understandable in ways unlike others available to educators.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article was to show how macromarketing concepts can be used to integrate business sustainability into the business school curriculum through the teaching of managerial macromarketing. This article has focused on the challenges and opportunities for teaching macromarketing concepts to business students. The time has never been better for integrating macromarketing and sustainability into business school curricula as managerial macromarketing. Although business schools, their faculties, and their students now welcome mostly business-centric sustainability (profits prioritized over value for other stakeholders), the changing environment outside business schools for societal-centric sustainability from firms sets the stage for a reformation of business schools in the coming years (Schlegelmilch, 2020).

Still, challenges remain in bringing macromarketing and sustainability into business school curricula. As a result, teachers of managerial macromarketing will be rebels. But thankfully, they will be rebels with a worthy cause.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Mark Peterson

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