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The purpose of this paper is synthesise social marketing literature over the past fifty years and deliver a set of guiding tenets to propel social marketing’s agenda forward.

Across three strands, this paper amalgamates theoretical and practitioner evidence from social marketing. This synthesis commences with a review, summary and critical discussion of five decades of social marketing research. Across Strands 2 and 3, the authors review 412 social marketing interventions reported across 10 evidence reviews and 238 case studies.

This paper demonstrates social marketing’s use of fundamental marketing principles and capability to achieve behaviour change outcomes. Social marketers have built frameworks and processes that non-profit organisations, government agencies and policymakers seeking to enact change can use. This paper delivers five tenets that summarise the findings of the three strands and delivers research priorities for the next 50 years of social marketing research to drive the field forward.

Drawing on five decades of learning, this paper proposes research priorities that can be applied to refine, recalibrate and future-proof social marketing’s success in making the world a better place.

This paper demonstrates the value of social marketing science and helps bridge gaps between theory and practice, and further strengthens social marketing’s value proposition. This paper provides confidence that money invested in social marketing programs is well spent.

This paper delivers a forward-looking perspective and provides social marketing academics and practitioners with confidence that it can assist in overcoming society’s most pressing issues. The paper encompasses key social marketing literature since it was founded 50 years ago. Five tenets will guide social marketing forward: evidencing marketing principles, operationalisation of processes, principles and activities, implementing systems thinking, creating and testing marketing theory and guiding a new social marketing era.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on food consumption as part of the wicked problem of obesity. Specifically, the authors seek to explore the complex interplay between stakeholders such as food producers, marketers, health and medical practitioners and policymakers and their influence on the ways in which individuals consume food and also chart a course forward using a systems approach, social marketing techniques and social enterprise to develop solutions to effect change.

This is a conceptual paper that proposes the food system compass to understand the complex interplay between stakeholders.

This new tool will provide social marketers with an improved understanding of the complexity of interactions between stakeholders and outcomes and integrating the necessity for coordination within and across micro, meso, exo and macro levels of the system as well as across sectors, institutions and stakeholders.

This is a conceptual paper and proposes the food system compass which offers a foundation for future research to expand upon.

This paper seeks to advance the theoretical base of social marketing by providing new insights into the trans-disciplinary and dynamic circumstances surrounding food consumption and obesity and highlights leverage points where joint actions can be facilitated with actors across and between micro, meso, exo and macro levels.

Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an important realm of entrepreneurship during the last decade. Research on what motivates social entrepreneurial activity continues to be of interest in the field. Given the integral role of the social entrepreneur, one area identified as deserving more attention is the leadership traits of the social entrepreneur. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a conceptual model on the role of national leadership culture on social entrepreneurship.

As part of the social fabric of a country, national leadership culture is viewed as a social contextual factor that can either enhance or hinder social entrepreneurial activity. As its broader conceptual base, this paper relies on institutional theory, marketing systems and leadership theory. At the heart of the proposed conceptual model are six leadership dimensions from the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) theoretical model: charismatic/value-based, team-oriented, participative, self-protective, humane-oriented and autonomous. These leadership dimensions are central to the propositions that accompany the proposed conceptual model.

Implications of this research for entrepreneurial marketing and public policy are presented. Since this research is conjectural, future directions for empirical research on national leadership culture in social entrepreneurship are discussed.

The conceptual model is the first to examine the role of national leadership culture on social entrepreneurship. The research adds value to the growing body of research on social entrepreneurship in its social context. It answers the call in the literature to examine leadership as it pertains to the individual entrepreneur’s pre-disposition to engage in social entrepreneurial activity.

This paper aims to critically reflect on the growing systems orientation in marketing research and the approaches used to understand marketing systems. In response, the paper offers an integrative metatheory built on the ontic necessity and subsequently constitutive and causal efficacy of relations.

This conceptual paper is built on a logic of critique, identifying the generative absences that produce problems in the frameworks in use and attempting to rectify these problems by offering an alternative meta-theoretical structure. This paper draws from critical realism, systems thinking and relational sociology.

This paper advocates for an emergentist ontology for marketing systems built on the value of both substance and relation as co-principles of existence and the subsequent irreducible stratification derived from this. This position suggests the following propositions: the ontological premise of being is reliant on relations; the social world is constructed of stratified levels of organisation in which entities, their properties and powers emerge by virtue of these relations; these entities operate in complex and mutually modifying interrelations; stability and change is the result of this complex interplay of temporally/spatially stratified relations; and time and space are properties and potential powers of organisation.

This paper considers a number of inconsistencies in current approaches to the study of marketing systems arguing these arise based on the absence of a view of relations that supports an effective theory of emergence. In response, the paper develops a set of ontological presuppositions regarding the nature of marketing systems and a subsequent set of epistemic conditions as an integrative metatheoretical position, through which these systems are better understood and analysed. The paper argues that these improve our ability to theorise about the multi-dimensionality of these systems.

This paper aims to provide guidance on how midstream social marketing can be used to understand and address wicked problems through adopting a collaborative systems integration approach conceptualised from a macromarketing perspective.

Rothschild’s motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) framework is applied in this study to understand veterinarians as midstream microactors in the macrosystem of wicked animal welfare issues. Focus group and individual interview data from veterinarians were analysed through the lens of the MOA framework to understand veterinarians’ as midstream microactors within a systems continuum.

The MOA of veterinarians to engage downstream targets – cat owners – in behaviour change are identified. Fresh insights reveal the challenges and barriers to simply focusing on veterinarians as the key microactor required to address the wicked problem of cat overpopulation. Challenges identified include the cost of sterilisation to both owners and veterinary practices, alongside vying beliefs about the capacity of individual veterinarians to persuade owners about the benefits of sterilisation to improve animal welfare. Additionally, insight into veterinarians’ perceptions of upstream strategies to address the problem – in terms of marketing, education and law – expose further complications on where regulation and law enforcement can be integrated in future social marketing strategies to address the cat overpopulation problem.

The application of the MOA framework improves understanding of the concept and practice of midstream social marketing. It provides a practical and strategic tool that social marketers can apply when approaching behaviour change that leverages midstream actors as part of the social change solution.

Research and theorisation in this paper demonstrates an alternative pathway to address wicked problems via a collaborative systems integration approach conceptualised from a macromarketing perspective. Effective long-term change relies on understanding and coordinating a broad macrosystem of interconnected actors along a downstream, midstream and upstream continuum. This starts by understanding the microactions of individual actors within the macrosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and expand the concept of a marketing system for developing a more dynamic and nuanced understanding of marketing. The purpose of the proposed framework is to extend this literature by making salient and explicit how context, market system and value creation are theoretically interrelated. To accomplish this objective, the authors use the framework proposed by Layton (2019) as the theoretical foundation to acquire insights into the market. Particularly, they investigate how four distinct marketing systems (i.e. anarchy, structured, emergent and purposeful market systems) operate in a developing economy. In addition, the study explores the market's effects of technological advancement, sociocultural influences, historical background and political institutions, as well as the responses of political entities, firms and consumers. Also, the positive and negative effects of the various marketing systems are analyzed. Finally, the authors investigate the changing marketplace in various industrial sectors (e.g. home appliances, food, apparel/fashion and transportation) to provide marketing researchers and practitioners with insights. In essence, the study focuses on the sectors related to everyday consumption.

This analysis uses a theoretical approach to extend the understanding concept of marketing. To examine the numerous market systems in India, the authors use an approach developed by Layton (2007). This theoretical approach is intended to sensitize scholars to critical processes rather than a hypothetico-deductive analysis with a prediction goal (Turner, 1986). Epistemologically, this analysis can be classified as a form of discovery-oriented theory development (Wells, 1993).

Although all four systems (e.g. autarchic, emergent, purposeful and structured) are ingrained in India, their functionality differs from the Western system and among industries. For example, the apparel sector appears more autarchic, but the food industry is more purposeful. How the home appliance market operates demonstrates the transition from an autarchic to an emergent system. The authors also uncover additional environmental factors that impact the four types of marketing systems and moderator roles of governate agencies and nonprofit organizations. The externality and positive outcomes also emerged throughout the analysis.

This study articulates the four types of marketing systems and illustrates the environmental factors/antecedents and outcomes for the exchange and value creation. Most importantly, it adds value to the literature by emphasizing the role of government agencies and unrestricted institutions in the mechanism. It also uncovers cultural elements such as spirituality as a catalyst for exchange and value creation.

The analysis provides practitioners with insights into operating the firm in India by articulating the industrial differentiations and the exchange/value creation. Specifically, it provides a blueprint for strategic analysis that can be used prior to market entry to increase the likelihood of market entry success by understanding the nuanced differences that lead to significant operational difficulties if not properly prepared for and managed.

This study adds to our existing knowledge of marketing from a systemic standpoint. It also broadens and explicates marketing system theory by assessing the uniqueness of developing markets.

This article explores how complexity theory can help marketers to understand a market and to operate within it. Essentially, it argues that complexity theory has the potential to provide both global and some local explanations of markets and is complementary to local theories like relationship marketing that may be more familiar to marketing managers. It establishes four types of complex systems that might be used to model social systems. Of these four types, complex adaptive systems seem most appropriate to describe markets. This is illustrated in an investigation of Honda in the global automobile industry. Implications for marketing managers centre on the need to understand feedback loops at many levels of a path‐dependent system that are inherently difficult to predict and control.

Understanding what organizational factors enable a successful social media presence is a relevant issue for academics and practicing managers. The purpose of this investigation is to thus develop and validate a scale to measure a social media marketing system (SMMS).

This paper follows a rigorous scale development process based on three stages: item generation, measurement development and instrument testing. The validity and reliability tests were conducted using data provided by social media managers and the managers' supervisors.

The results validate a 25-item multidimensional SMMS scale that exhibits adequate internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and nomological validity. The results also show that the SMMS scale positively correlates with outcomes that are key to firm success (social media strategy success and marketing performance).

This paper conceptualizes SMMS through four dimensions, namely formalization, human resource management, co-creation and marketing planning, and the paper associates SMMS to important firm outcomes. The newly developed measurement instrument adds to the small repository of research scales relevant to social media and can serve as a springboard from which future work can understand social media from both an internal management perspective and an integrated outlook.

Transformative service research (TSR) and social marketing share a common goal, which is to institute social change that improves individual and societal well-being. However, the mechanism via which such improved well-being results or so-called “transformation” occurs, is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to examine the claims made in the TSR literature to identity the themes and scholarly meaning of “transformative” service exchange; ascertain the mechanisms used in service contexts to realize transformation, including to motivate long-term, sustainable societal change; and develop a transformative service exchange continuum to guide research and managerial approaches that aim to create uplifting social change. The authors recommend their continuum as a framework to inform how social marketing and service scholars design service solutions to address wicked social problems.

This paper presents a qualitative study where Leximancer, a text-mining tool, is used to visualize the structure of themes and concepts that define transformative service exchanges as explained and applied in the literature. Additionally, a profiling analysis of transformation as it is discussed in the TSR literature is used to identify the mechanisms that service marketers have developed to establish current theorization of service thinking for social change. These qualitative phases of analysis then inform the development of the transformative service exchange continuum.

A scoping review identified 51 articles across 12 journals, based on this study’s selection criteria for identifying transformative service exchanges. The Leximancer analysis systematically and efficiently guided the authors’ interpretation of the large data corpus and was used in the identification of service themes. The use of text-mining software afforded a detailed lens to enrich the authors’ interpretation and clarification of six high-level concepts for inclusion on a transformative service exchange continuum.

This paper aims to unpack the meaning of transformative service exchange by highlighting the mechanism(s) used by researchers when designing social change outcomes. It contributes to TSR via the development of the continuum across micro, meso and macro levels. The temporal nature of transformative service exchanges is also elucidated. This continuum integrates current TSR studies and can guide future service studies in the TSR and social marketing domains.

Accomplishing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is imperative for societies to meet their grand challenges. Achieving these goals by 2030 requires sustainability change agents with a can-do-attitude. This study aims to show how institutions of higher education can become partners for social marketing in bringing forward such change agents.

Taking a case study approach, this paper examines a master’s programme to identify factors relevant to educating sustainability change agents that can serve as a basis for a social marketing planning primer to foster the SDGs.

This study presents the social marketing discipline with a viable option for supporting the achievement of the SDGs through higher education. Its contributions are twofold. First, it is shown that when interdisciplinarity and a project-based approach are conceptualized and organized to create a motivating and meaningful learning environment with the SDGs as guiding principles, students, as sustainability change agents, can increase awareness and have the potential to generate impacts regarding the SDGs at the individual, organizational and institutional levels. Second, based on this, the paper provides guidance to social marketers regarding the planning of a campaign targeting higher education institutions. The authors argue that the aim of this campaign should be to promote the implementation of the SDGs as guiding principles above all, as this can facilitate the process of students becoming sustainability change agents who help achieve the goals in a timely manner.

Whilst single case studies are usually limited in drawing generalizations, the present study offers a starting point for investigating the role of universities as a target group for social marketing in fostering further sustainable development. Building on its findings, future research could test the proposed social marketing planning primer and evaluate the impact on the SDGs at a larger scale than only one university.

It is proposed to use the findings of the study to model a social marketing campaign aimed at universities to motivate them to help develop sustainability change agents in all disciplines by integrating the SDGs as guiding principles for study programmes.

Students’ impacts range from leading peers to buy sustainable products and consume less to influencing a company to adopt sustainable packaging, thereby contributing to social change.

This study is among the first to examine the possible effect of a study programme on the SDGs at different societal levels by taking the perspectives of multiple stakeholders into account and combining the theory of higher education with sustainability and social marketing.