Macromarketing,the Indispensable Discipline

Overview

The year 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Macromarketing. This special “Ruby Anniversary Issue” (RAI) of the Journal commemorates that milestone, celebrating four decades of scholarly exploration of the interactions among markets, marketing, and society. It is the Journal’s second “Anniversary Issue”, the Silver Anniversary was its first. Similarly to the Silver Issue, the development and publication of the RAI presented opportunities to reflect on our origins, contributions, and trends since 1981, with some emphasis on developments since 2006, and to explore new opportunities – as well as obligations – for macromarketing scholarship.

The Journal itself continues to develop in impressive fashion, including but not limited to: the expansion from two to four issues per volume; the emergence of thematic special issues and guest-editors for them; the expansion of the editorial board to include associate editors; the relationship with Sage Publishing (and some technologies, efficiencies and global reach this relationship provides); the establishment and incorporation of the Macromarketing Society, the growth of its membership and its global outreach; the diversity of the Manuscript Review Board and the Policy Board to better reflect and represent macromarketing scholars and the phenomena and people they study; the Journal’s inclusion in the Social Sciences Citation Index; its steadily growing impact factor; and the overarching, positive impacts – too many in number to list here – macromarketing scholarship has had on markets, marketing, societies, countries, our planet and the well-being of its myriad stakeholders.

These contributions were made over decades by Macromarketers – researchers, people, a community – committed to scholarship intended to understand and improve the human condition, and to sustain the world humans inhabit.

From established Macromarketing Titans, mentors, editors and board members, to protégés and rising doctoral students, the response by those scholars to the call-for-papers for the RAI was impressive. Authors were encouraged to submit manuscripts that revisit or expound on traditional themes and controversies, and to develop and express their own novel ideas about the marketing field and its future macromarketing directions. Contributing scholars accordingly shared what they considered to be most salient, revealing and representing, we believe, the current depth and breadth of macromarketing, and potentially its expansion, reach, and future impact on the academy, practice, policy, society, and the world. We were especially pleased to see papers on which authors collaborated across academic generations, as encouraged, and indeed such collaboration was apparent on author-teams for six of the articles.

Further to expanding readers’ thinking about the essence, purpose and potential of macromarketing – while also recognizing the scholars who forged the discipline; who made and continue to make the Journal of Macromarketing the rigorous, well-respected and impactful scholarly forum that it is today – our objectives for the RAI are:

to share a comprehensive, diverse perspective, and nuanced overview and articulation of what macromarketing is; its origins, issues it can address, challenges it can redress, and plausible ways it might grow in scope and influence;

Readers may notice the RAI is longer/larger than most issues of the Journal. The editorial team and representatives from Sage agreed that the quality of papers and importance of the Ruby Anniversary warranted the extra pages.

The organization of the Issue and placement of articles and commentaries are intended to facilitate a narrative flow, not to indicate importance. We begin with an examination of history as a guide for the future, and close with insightful essays on one of our most compelling societal challenges – sustainability. We are hopeful the contents inspire readers to develop their own manuscripts for future contributions to the Journal and potentially to other outlets that increasingly value and welcome macromarketing topics and research; if any readers find what they believe to be omissions from the RAI, we are also hopeful they will fill the gaps via future articles, commentaries or special issues. An introduction to the articles and commentaries follows.

Articles

The lead article, “The Five Stages of the Macromarketing Field of Study: From Raison D’etre to Field of Significant Promise” offers a thoughtful and inspired examination, synthesis and prognosis by Shelby Hunt, Ashley Hass, and Kerry Manis. The authors trace the origins of the Macromarketing discipline from the early 20th Century, through five stages. Notable is the observation that “macromarketing” as we generally think of it today essentially was marketing for the first two stages, from the early 1900s to the 1950s, and until the emergence of a more managerial focus. Though macromarketing issues remained compelling over the next three decades, and one could argue increasingly so, the managerial focus nevertheless gained in popularity, including in business schools and their doctoral programs. This trend also coincided with a fragmentation of the marketing discipline, with emphases on consumer behavior, quantitative modeling, marketing management/strategy, as well as macromarketing. However, for a number of reasons the authors discuss, some of which are still associated with the rudimentary and essential purposes of marketing, the authors conclude we are on the cusp of a new fifth stage, as a well-formed, committed and growing community of macromarketing scholars explore important interactions among markets, marketing, and society. Hunt, Hass, and Manis submit the commencement of this fifth stage is vital if we are to advance the marketing discipline and to ensure its long-term viability.

In “The Future of Macromarketing: Recommendations Based on a Content Analysis of the Past Twelve Years of the Journal of Macromarketing,” Ahmet Ekici, Tugce Ozgen Genc and Hafize Celik examine research foci and trends published in the Journal following publication of the Silver Anniversary and prior to the publication of the Ruby Anniversary Issue. More specifically, they consider the essays former editors George Fisk and Mark Peterson contributed to the Silver Anniversary Issue, which independently articulated visions for the future positioning of macromarketing; what Fisk had previously referred to as provisioning technology that had/has capabilities to transform markets, marketing and society, for the purposes of creating a more sustainable world. Based on their content analysis, the authors discern the extent to which macromarketing scholarship has responded to those recommendations. They then provide a new list of recommendations for macromarketing researchers as we embark on scholarly journeys to study complex phenomena, to offer macromarketing solutions and ultimately “to save the world,” a mission frequently championed by the late George Fisk, the Journal’s founding editor.

Continuing themes regarding focus, depth, breadth, and currency of macromarketing, Beatriz DeQuero-Navarro, Julie Stanton, and Tom Klein share “A Panoramic Review of Macromarketing Literature”. This contribution is novel and noteworthy in several respects, including the arrangement and number of topics, which add to and expand earlier efforts published in the Journal and elsewhere. An instructive introduction accompanies each of the 19 topical sections; references extend sources for the topics. This article thus provides an updated bibliography of topically organized articles, which will be a useful resource for researchers and teachers. And, by highlighting traditional and emerging areas of interest, the authors offer both variety and recency in focus and representative methods across the Macromarketing literature, while also expanding macromarketing boundaries and raising our awareness of them.

Profound technological change and its sweeping impact on markets, marketing and the billions of consumers who use technology – and often fall victim to it – are quintessentially complex and systemic macromarketing phenomena. Nik Dholakia, Aron Darmody, Detlev Zwick, Ruby Dholakia, and A. Fuat Firat explore this complex cauldron in “Consumer Choicemaking and Choicelessness in Hyperdigital Marketspaces”. The authors inform or remind us that technology, particularly digital-cybernetic technology, is fundamentally reshaping our choice processes – including our perceptions, considerations, and actions – on a massive scale. This reality led the research team to undertake a general review and examination of discourses on choice and choicelessness, focusing firstly on the pre-digital era, circa 1900-1980. They then focus on the current, emerging era of technology-shaped choice processes, which are observed and experienced in the hyperdigital marketspaces that have emerged and proliferated in the 21st century. Among their conclusions: the lives of an increasingly large number of market segments consume digitally; truly, digital technology is integral to almost all aspects of their/our lives. While this phenomenon clearly has some consumer benefits, the authors also make clear it has a very dark side, which may manifest as deft symbolic sublimations and inversions, and outcomes whereby a false perception of enhanced autonomy is actually digital manipulation and potentially exploitation.

At this juncture it seems fitting to include our first article to focus explicitly on the interactions of ethics, justice, social responsibility, and sustainability. Accordingly, “Laudato si’ – A Macromarketing Manifesto for a Just and Sustainable Environment” is our next entry. Thomas Klein and Gene Laczniak examine Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment and climate change. In so doing, they strive to harmonize two perspectives of business purpose vis-à-vis ecology – ethical efficacy vs. economic efficiency – which often conflict or are seen to be mutually exclusive. Harmonization is intended to mitigate or eliminate this as a false choice. Though a religious document, Laudato si’ can be interpreted as a powerful and even secular manifesto for those who seek to protect and preserve the ecological environment. The authors direct our attention to key themes in Laudato si’, such as environmental sustainability, social justice, shared values and the common good, which should supersede short-term economic advantage. Klein and Laczniak note that the encyclical is intentionally vague regarding solutions and explicit, coordinated, systemic actions to affect them. This article outlines how macromarketing scholars are well positioned to constructively engage the environmental crisis, and to suggest specific market practices and policies.

Among its clear themes, the Journal of Macromarketing is a preferred outlet for the scholarly study of marketing history and historical ideas germane to marketing. In “Our Obsolete Marketing Mentality: George Fisk, meet Karl Polanyi,” Raymond Benton reminds us that underappreciated or overlooked ideas from other disciplines can potentially enrich marketing research, theory and practice, today. Benton makes this case by examining independently expressed, but complementary views articulated by George Fisk, and economic historian/sociologist Karl Polanyi. Benton contends this endeavor – and similar explorations to understand the past in ways that help us to respond to challenges and opportunities now and in the future – should (1) resonate with macromarketers interested in, for example, marketing and development, critical marketing, sustainability, and alternative economies, and presumably anyone interested in the long-term impact and influence of marketing; and (2) create interest in and contributions to macromarketing by scholars from other disciplines who have similar values and shared interests.

The final article, “Macromarketing Pedagogy: Empowering Students to Achieve a Sustainable World,” revisits the fundamental truth that macromarketing involves dissemination as well as discovery, and that education is a key form of dissemination. In what is truly a team effort, Stanley Shapiro, Stefanie Beninger, Christine Domegan, Alexander Reppel, Julie Stanton, and Forrest Watson reflect on 40 years of Macromarketing Pedagogy. They conclude that marketing education has largely fallen short of the desired goal of inculcating critical and socially aware thinking, particularly in the context of systemic complexities such as those inherent to sustainability. They propose that supranational organizations such as the United Nations and their global initiatives – e.g., the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – can be unifying forces to inspire focused collaboration as we work to assure a more sustainable future. The research team points out that macromarketing’s enduring commitment to the study of interactions among markets, marketing, and society, clearly positions us to be vanguards of marketing pedagogy that edifies students and facilitates actualization of the SDGs. Four illustrative case studies and the online repository Pedagogy Place are introduced to demonstrate forward-thinking approaches to macromarketing teaching, learning and application.

Commentaries

Marketing in the aggregate, typically studied in the form of marketing systems, is macromarketing. Ben Wooliscroft helps to corroborate that assertion in the title and text of his commentary, “Macromarketing and the Systems Imperative”. Delving deeply into the literature and across disciplines, this commentary argues for the application of classic and novel methods designed to study systems – not merely because systems are integral to macromarketing discourse, but also because of the limitations of micro-marketing research. Wooliscroft contends macromarketing scholars should re-emphasize our focus on and use of systems-research methods, while also connecting to the broader systems literature, especially given the complexity of our world and the growing reasons to understand it as a closed system. Macromarketing in turn offers other systems-researchers compelling phenomena to which they can apply advanced techniques. Wooliscroft takes heart in a macromarketing renaissance featuring systems research, including studies designed to understand complex and chaotic systems, which serve to improve those systems through prudent policy and sustainable markets, marketing, and consumption.

While one can certainly make a strong case for “the Systems Imperative,” another overarching belief shared among macromarketers is that markets, marketing, and marketing systems should improve life-quality and well-being. This belief, though widely accepted, begs important and enduring questions for macromarketing scholars regarding conceptualization and measurement. Toward answering some of those questions, Joseph Sirgy contributes “Macromarketing Metrics of Consumer Well-Being: An Update”. This commentary updates research related to constructs and metrics of well-being, principally research vis-à-vis public and academic sectors. Sirgy then shares thoughts regarding how these metrics can be improved, and thoughts that may inspire future research. Noteworthy is the attention to construct validity in public sector metrics, which reveals association with measures of human development. Readers will see that metrics can be improved by (1) testing associations with promising, newly established constructs of well-being, such as eudaimonia and social well-being, and (2) introducing moderating effects of individual differences familiar to consumer researchers, as well as product-related differences familiar to managerial marketers and marketing scholars interested in public policy.

If macromarketing is fundamentally about the creation and administration of marketing systems to enhance well-being, then those systems should enhance well-being for everyone. June Francis’s commentary, “A Macromarketing Call to Action—Because Black Lives Matter,” raises our consciousness, challenges us and implores us to understand the multiple ways marketing has contributed to and even fomented anti-black racism, and continues to neglect structural and systemic racism. In this contribution, which is equal parts thoughtful, discomfiting and compelling, we are alerted to the urgency for transformative change, including in the marketing academy. Francis also reminds us and encourages us that macromarketing – with its commitment to justice in marketing systems and concerns for marketing’s impact on society – is poised to lead this change. Marketers are called “to re-historize” the role of transatlantic slavery, and to constructively engage enduring problems of racial disenfranchisement and injustice stemming from it. Such engagement will require leadership from researchers to be reflective in addressing systemic racism, and for the academy to adopt anti-racist strategies and policies, to move this research from the periphery of marketing practice and scholarship to the forefront, and ultimately to ensure just marketing systems and well-being for all.

Marketing systems that are inclusive, just and that enhance well-being likely cannot emerge without a preponderance of marketing institutions and people – e.g., businesses, brands, and their managers, investors, and customers – that embrace macromarketing values. Managerial marketing researchers increasingly understand and appreciate this fact, as evinced by Donald Lehmann’s commentary, “Macro Marketing Comes of Age”. Note that “Macro Marketing” is not a spelling-error. It is used deliberately to emphasize the growing appreciation of “Macro” ideas beyond the firm and its finances, evident in an accelerating managerial shift to incorporate macromarketing principles in micromarketing designs, goods, services, experiences, decisions, and activities throughout marketing systems. Accordingly, managerial marketing scholars also recognize the impact marketing has – both good and bad – on various aspects of society and therefore a need to incorporate macromarketing in their research. Lehmann shares examples of this and raises some questions about marketing applications. The commentary suggests directions for future research in the area of macromarketing useful to marketing scholars with primary interests in business, management and customers – and growing interests in other stakeholders – and closes: “(h)opefully more scholars will take up this difficult but rewarding research.”

A priority focus in the managerial shift toward macromarketing ideas and practices must be the challenge of sustainability. This imperative is detailed by Jagdish Sheth and Atul Parvatiyar in “Sustainable Marketing: Market-driving, Not Market-driven,” which explores how sustainability has emerged over the decades to be integral to macromarketing. The authors moreover contend sustainability necessarily must expand to redress myriad and interacting environmental, social and economic challenges, on a global scale – and that governments and businesses must cooperate to achieve sustainability goals. Policies and practices that reverse unsustainable production and consumption are paramount; this reversal necessitates a philosophical transition to a more responsible orientation that “drives markets” for sustainable products, services and systems requisite to building sustainable communities, societies, countries, blocs and indeed a global ecosystem. Sheth and Parvatiyar portray how sustainable marketing considerations have grown, but currently fall short. To move us closer to a sustainable world, they present a framework to drive sustainable consumption via corporate marketing strategy and appropriate government interventions; they recommend four strategies of corporate marketing and four types of government intervention for sustainable marketing.

Scholars committed to a professional lifetime of sustainability research could reasonably conclude that sustainability is the highest order of or is the ultimate purpose of Macromarketing, transcending marketing practice and the discourse of the marketing academy, and we close this Ruby Issue by providing this argument in the Andrea Prothero and Pierre McDonagh essay, “Ambiguity of Purpose and the Politics of Failure: Sustainability as Macromarketing’s Compelling Political Calling”. The existential threats to Homo Sapiens and many other living things on our planet indicate sustainability is the highest priority. Years of macromarketing publications, daily observations of Homo Marketus and the collective scholarship of this special issue lead us ineluctably to that conclusion. If current interactions among markets, marketing and society contribute to the threat – or are the threat – they must be changed or replaced; people and institutions beyond marketing practitioners and scholars must be influenced to facilitate that change. Further to this reasoning, the commentary by Prothero and McDonagh includes a review of sustainability research published in the Journal, including special issues they have edited. They express concerns about macromarketing’s ambiguity toward sustainability as a political project, its failure to emphasize effective alternatives beyond the Development School, and its suboptimal impact on wider sustainability discourses. The authors contend a more political reflection within the Journal could help to redress these concerns; they additionally suggest these current times of crisis require us to draw from critical and political perspectives published in the formative years of the Journal, that the politics of the day require persistence and perseverance to ask difficult questions and thus to ensure a sustainable future.

Moving Forward

We are hopeful readers will see in these articles and commentaries much of the essence of macromarketing, from its genesis to all the promise it holds for the future. And this future is sure to include enormous challenges: pandemics; environmental degradation; injustice, exploitation, disenfranchisement, conflict, and suffering; climate change; scarcity of food, water, energy and even hope -- and the vexing human decisions, behaviors and social traps that foment these challenges and compound their threat. But we should also recognize that these challenges present opportunities.

The Macromarketing discipline’s crux is the comprehension of the complex and systemic interactions among markets, marketing and society. In a world where markets and marketing affect, either directly or indirectly, perhaps all aspects of humans, and indeed all living things on planet Earth; where the survival of Homo Sapiens will depend on better understanding of those systems – the extent to which they are just, inclusive and function sustainably – is paramount. The aforementioned challenges result from or are exacerbated by the marketing and consumption of goods, services and experiences; the allocation of resources, and access to or scarcity of goods and services. Solutions must then come from positive changes in markets, marketing, policies and consumption, locally, and globally. Macromarketing is indispensable to this change. Macromarketing scholars will lead the way forward, toward a more just and sustainable world.

Remembrances

In the years since publication of the Silver Anniversary Issue, the macromarketing community has lost legendary scholars who were instrumental to the emergence or growth of the macromarketing discipline and success of this Journal. Here we remember with fondness and gratitude Gary Bamossy, Review Board Member; Roger Dickinson, Section Editor and Board Member of the Macromarketing Society; Andreas Falkenberg, Policy Board and Review Board Member; George Fisk, Founding Editor; Ronald Fullerton, historian and Review Board Member; Thomas (Tom) Klein, ethicist, and Inaugural Board Member; Robert Lusch, Review Board Member and Editor of the Journal of Marketing; John Mittelstaedt, Policy Board and Review Board Member, and former President of the Macromarketing Society; Robert Nason, two-term Editor and first President of the Macromarketing Society; and Anthony Pecotich, Policy Board and Review Board Member. Visionaries, scholars, mentors, co-authors, colleagues, and friends, each made enormous, immeasurable contributions. Their memories and impact will live on, in the works of all macromarketing researchers and teachers. In the case of Professor Klein, Tom was committed to macromarketing and the Journal literally to the end, as he was active in working on two manuscripts that appear in the Ruby Issue, supporting his co-authors until entering hospice just prior to publication of the articles in this Issue.