Search results

The purpose of the editorial is to accompany this special issue on “Social marketing: social change”.

The editorial presents three invited reflections by Philip Kotler, Michael Polonsky and Gerard Hastings. It also discusses the articles in this special issue.

Overall, the contributed papers demonstrate that there are many layers to social marketing.

The articles featured in this special issue help to advance social marketing theory as well as offer valuable implications and recommendations for managers, practitioners and policymakers.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/EUM0000000000647. When citing the article, please cite: Michael Jay Polonsky, Denise G. Jarratt, (1992), “Rural Outshopping in Australia: The Bathurst-Orange Region”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 26 Iss: 10, pp. 5 - 16.

To explore how a “harm chain” analysis could identify and address stakeholders' concerns about direct‐to‐consumer advertising of prescription medicines (DTCA).

The paper analyses the development of stakeholder theory before exploring and discussing the tension between normative and instrumental logic. The authors adopt a utilitarian perspective, which they use to identify the range of stakeholders involved with or affected by DTCA.

A “harm chain” analysis identifies common concerns held by stakeholders; these include disquiet over the quality of information provided via DTCA and possible derogation of doctors' role as prescribers. The paper outlines prescriptive advertising guidelines that could address these issues, but notes that failure to achieve a satisfactory reduction in harm potential may result in a ban on DTCA.

Although a utilitarian norm will not satisfy all stakeholders' interests, the authors believe that it will produce the greatest reduction in harm, as well as maximising the benefits that can result from DTCA. The conclusions imply the need for independent monitoring of DTCA's effects on stakeholder groups to ensure that regulations governing this advertising are broadly based.

The authors suggest changes to DTCA regulation, specifically the introduction of a “fair balance” criterion and a statement explicitly recognising doctors' role in determining appropriate treatments.

Although the debate over DTCA has been well documented, this paper represents the first attempt to use stakeholder theory to explore the ethical issues associated with this advertising. The analysis produces a decision‐making model that the authors recommend should guide future policy decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the global contribution of academics to marketing literature between 1999 and 2003, based on an examination of the location of academics institution of employment, as reported in published works. The data is used to evaluate the global dispersion of publishing.

The paper uses the method of content analysis where the authorship of all articles in 20 leading marketing journals between 1999 and 2003 is examined. An empirical examination of performance was undertaken across geographic regions. There was also an examination of whether the quality of journal affected regional performance.

The research found that there is a significant “bias” of authorship within the 20 journals examined, with the majority of works published by academics at institutions in North America. There is some variation in regional performance based on the type of journal examined.

There was no attempt to empirically examine why differences might exist. The study only focused on a sample of 20 English language journals over five years. These journals have been included in studies that list the leading marketing journal for US and European academics.

The research suggests that there may in fact be regional differences in publishing behaviour. It is unclear if these differences relate to variations in the “objectives” of institutions within each country or other factors, such as the North American publish‐or‐perish mentality. The research posits that a marketing knowledge may be unnecessarily restricted, if there is a bias against non‐North American perspectives.

While there have been other works examining research performance of institutions, there has been limited examination in marketing on the nation in which authors work and none have used a broad cross‐section of journals. This work takes a global “snapshot” of national research performance within marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and examine streams in the literature related to academic publishing, with a focus on works in marketing. The content of the works within each theme are then explored to identify what issues have been examined and their implications.

The paper is a literature review, drawing on 30 years of research on academic publishing in marketing. The review is designed to cover the underlying issues examined, but is not designed to be comprehensive in terms of all the works exploring each stream of research.

There are five main streams in the literature focusing on: rankings; theory and knowledge development; how to publish;, criticisms of publishing; and other issues. Within each stream, a number of sub‐areas are explored. The works tend to be fragmented and there is generally limited in‐depth qualitative research within streams exploring the underlying assumptions on which publishing is based.

The focus of the research is on the streams of works, rather than the findings within each stream and future research could explore each of these streams and sub‐streams in more detail. Generally, the works appear to becoming increasingly sophisticated in terms of their analysis, which is only possible with the new technologies available. New metrics proposed in the literature that can be used to better understand publishing and additional qualitative research exploring some of the basic assumptions could also be explored.

The research suggests that some streams with regard to academic publishing may have reached saturation and future publishing in these areas will need to be innovative in its approach and analysis, if these works are to be published.

This paper is the first attempt to develop streams within the literature on academic publishing in marketing and thus draws together a diverse cross‐section of works. It provides suggestions for directions for future research in the various streams.

Examines the differences in types of environmental claims used in advertisements in Australia, Canada, the UK and USA. The advertisements are examined using a content analysis schema with four categories (product orientation, process orientation, image orientation or environmental fact) which have been developed and reported in the literature. The four types of environmental advertisements can be “compressed” into two groups: substantive claims (product and process based) and posturing claims (image and environmental fact based). Suggests that claims in advertisements may be a proxy for firm behaviour and therefore firms using substantive claims in their advertisements are more environmentally involved than firms using posturing claims in their advertisements. Finds that US advertisements use the most posturing claims and least substantive claims, with Australian advertisements using the most substantive claims and least posturing claims. This may suggest that US firms (i.e. the companies making these claims) are less environmentally involved compared with firms in the three other countries examined.

In the stakeholder marketing literature, there have been calls by several researchers to expand the stakeholder domain to incorporate a broader array of stakeholders. In developing this argument in this paper the authors aim to explore a set of stakeholder relationships in an international retailing context, notably those which exist between retail firms and investment banks.

Theoretical ideas are subject to empirical scrutiny from 34 in‐depth interviews with investment banks and senior retail executives from two retail multinationals.

Exploratory findings suggest that US investment banks' ideals were at odds with European retail firms – and both occupied “different thought worlds”. It is concluded that the relationships between financial stakeholders and the retail firm cannot be explained simply by reference to stylised economic interactions, but must also be examined in the light of the cultural contexts and different forms of market system within which different firms emerge, operate and interact.

New strategies such as internationalisation stretch resources and capabilities to a point where retailers invariably will be exposed to different stakeholder issues and stresses. Towards this end, this paper contends that the significant international re‐orientation under way in retailing must be understood within the wider context of stakeholder theory. The paper argues that the full potential of applying stakeholder marketing theory to the internationalisation process of retailers has yet to be realised. From this exploratory research, five research propositions are put forward that might serve as a guide to future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to assess whether online commercial panel volunteering can be segmented based on their motivations, using the volunteer functions inventor. The authors also investigate whether segments exist which differ in demographic characteristics.

The authors survey 484 Australian online panel volunteers using a adapted version of the 30 item of the volunteer function inventory (VFI) scale developed by Clary et al. (1998). Data were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and cluster analysis, as well as ANOVA and χ2 test comparisons of demographics between clusters.

CFA verifies that the VFI scale is suitable instrument to gauge online participants’ motivations. Cluster analysis produced a five-cluster solution, where respondents with low motivations overall comprised the largest grouping. Segments are interpreted by assessing the difference between the total sample average and the segment profile. The examination also identifies that the only demographic factor that varies across the five clusters is “respondents” employment status”.

Future research could explore if differences in segments result in differences in online participation. The high number or respondents with low motivations may explain the relatively high levels of churn that take place within online panels and as a result panel operators would need to continually attract new members. Further research could also investigate whether the levels of motivation change over time and if so what effect such variation would produce on respondents’ retention.

Research on online panel respondents’ motivation is still limited and investigating online panellists’ motivation as volunteers is very important as it unveils, as in the study herein reported, that alternative types of respondents may be driven by different factors when joining an online panel (or completing a given survey). Recruitment strategies could, therefore, be shaped to suit the motivation of the different segments. By refining the matching between volunteers’ profiles and their motivation, managers could improve how volunteers are recruited, managed and retained.

The aim of this study was to assess whether the removal of blood donation “barriers” facilitates blood donation intentions, using a sample of African migrants, and to identify the implications for social marketing. African migrants are currently under-represented as blood donors in Australia. Some members of the African community have unique donation needs that can only be served by this community.

Interviews were conducted with 425 people from the African community in Victoria and South Australia. Factor analysis was performed on the barriers and the removal of barriers. Item groupings for both constructs differed, suggesting that barriers and their removal are not necessarily opposite constructs.

The cultural society factor was negatively associated with blood donation intention (i.e. a barrier), whereas engagement and overcoming fear were positively associated with blood donation intention (i.e. facilitators). Cultural issues and lack of understanding were not seen to impede blood donation. Additionally, the removal of cultural barriers did not facilitate increases in blood donation intentions. Thus, the removal of barriers may not be sufficient on their own to encourage donation.

This only examines the issue with regards to whether the removal of barriers is a facilitator of blood donation with one group of migrants, and relationships may vary across other migrant and non-migrant groups.

Policymakers often use social marketing interventions to overcome barriers as a way of facilitating blood donation. This research suggests that removing barriers is indeed important because these barriers impede people considering becoming blood donors. However, the findings also suggest that the removal of barriers is insufficient on its own to motivate blood donations (i.e. the removal of barriers is a hygiene factor). If this is the case, social marketing campaigns need to be multifaceted, removing barriers as well as leveraging facilitators, simultaneously.

This work identified that the impact of barriers and their removal may facilitate effective social marketing campaigns in differing ways, in the context of blood donation.

How barriers and their removal impact social marketing activities (i.e. blood donation behaviour) has generally not been explored in research.

To identify and analyse the beliefs of value‐chain intermediaries regarding the production and marketing of food products conforming to environmentally sustainable standards.

The methodology was in‐depth, semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interviews with senior managers of food companies across the value chain.

In Australia, the demand for foods that are produced under environmentally sustainable standards has been slow to take‐off because customers do not perceive these products as offering any special benefits; customers distrust the claims made by organisations; these products are much more expensive than traditional products, and the implementation of environmental standards is expensive. Customers claim that the use of different terminologies such as organic, green and environmentally friendly in promoting food products is confusing.

Findings are not generalisable because the study is based on a small sample.

Value‐chain intermediaries are unlikely to voluntarily adopt environmental standards because of low demand for such foods and the high costs of adopting and monitoring environmentally sustainable production and marketing regimes.

The story supports previous research findings from the USA and EU.