Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji joeb.80.6.338-346
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
The Greening of Marketing: An Analysis of
Introductory Textbooks
Michelle Demoss & Carolyn Y. Nicholson
To cite this article: Michelle Demoss & Carolyn Y. Nicholson (2005) The Greening of Marketing:
An Analysis of Introductory Textbooks, Journal of Education for Business, 80:6, 338-346, DOI:
10.3200/JOEB.80.6.338-346
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.80.6.338-346
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 45
View related articles
Citing articles: 2 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 12 January 2016, At: 22:46
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
The Greening of Marketing:
An Analysis of
Introductory Textbooks
MICHELLE DEMOSS
CAROLYN Y. NICHOLSON
Stetson University
Deland, Florida
A
typical current mission statement
for a business school states that it
is the incubator of tomorrow’s business
leaders. This promise requires that
schools and curricula be not only broad
in scope but also forward-looking, educating students to effectively handle the
myriad challenges and issues they will
confront in their careers. However, business schools have yet to incorporate the
vitally important area of environmental
sustainability of business practices and
strategy into their curricula (Becker,
1997; Bunch, 1999).
As a contrast, the business community
has begun to recognize and make environmental issues a priority in its strategic
decisions. Leading organizations are
shifting away from their adversarial
stance toward environmental concerns
and are adopting more environmentally
sustainable practices, both as a hedge
against future costs and as a means of
creating a competitive advantage in the
marketplace. For example, several car
manufacturers, such as Honda and Toyota, have successfully introduced gasoline–electric “hybrid” cars that are experiencing high consumer demand (Grace,
2004). Toyota’s Prius has been named
Motor Trend Magazine’s 2004 Car of the
Year. Ford Motor Company followed suit
with its “full hybrid” SUV Escape (i.e., it
relies even less on gasoline than other
hybrids), which was launched in summer
338
Journal of Education for Business
ABSTRACT. In this study, the authors
examined whether introductory marketing textbooks contain the information that is needed to educate future
business leaders about the important
role of environmentally sustainable
practices. We content-analyzed the 21
current introductory marketing textbooks for coverage of these practices.
The results showed limited, sporadic
coverage of specific issues, with modest exposure to general environmental
awareness. The audit indicated that
exposure in pricing issues is more deficient than in other elements of the marketing mix. The 6 market leader texts
were only marginally better at coverage than were the others. We concluded that, in the case of the environmentally sustainable practices, business
schools have yet to incorporate this
vitally important area into their curricula, in part because available textbooks
lack sufficient coverage.
2004. Lexus announced in a September
2004 press release that prelaunch orders
for its 2006 hybrid SUV, RX400h, are the
highest in the company’s history. More
than ever, the business community needs
business schools to educate and train
future leaders in designing and implementing sustainable business practices.
Although part of the blame for this
dearth of exposure to—much less study
of—environmental issues rests with the
business school, the pedagogy materials
available for instructor and student use
in the classroom (i.e., textbooks) are
perhaps also to blame. In this study, we
content-analyzed the textbooks available for teaching undergraduate principles of marketing to see what and how
extensively environmental sustainability
issues are addressed.
We examined the amount of coverage
of environmentally sustainable marketing issues across all elements of the
marketing mix, both in discussion and
in assignments, in 21 separate current
textbooks. These results provided an
examination of the coverage of sustainable marketing issues and practices in
current marketing textbooks for authors,
publishers, and curriculum coordinators. Educators who want to integrate
environmentally sustainable marketing
into their course materials will find this
study useful in guiding their decisions
about which textbooks they should use.
Teaching Environmental
Sustainability
The World Resources Institute (WRI),
together with the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, biennially
assesses the degree to which business
schools incorporate social and environmental stewardship into curricula. The
study focuses on MBA-level education,
in which business students traditionally
are most exposed to environmentally sustainable strategies. In WRI’s most recent
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
publication (Chapple, Powers, & Bunch,
2003), survey results indicated that the
number of core courses with environmental content is up, but the increase is
not very large. Specifically, 45% of
schools in 2003 required one or more
courses in ethics, sustainability, corporate
social responsibility, or business and
society, compared with 34% in 2001.
It is important to note that WRI’s
results showed that the integration of
environmental issues into other required
core courses (such as accounting,
finance, and marketing) remains severely
limited. WRI points out that these core
courses most powerfully shape the MBA
experience. Thus, these courses are the
most critical for infusing environmental
issues into the curriculum and for providing the best opportunity to ensure that
each student examines environmental
issues before graduating. If this trend
exists for MBA education, how much
worse (or perhaps better) might it be at
the undergraduate level? Although the
examination of textbooks in all undergraduate core areas is beyond the scope
of this project, this study can answer that
question with regard to marketing.
Several researchers have identified
methods to address environmental
issues in the marketing curriculum that
reflect the needs and realities of the
world that graduates will enter. One of
the most practical methods is to ensure
that environmental issues have a pervasive presence in the core business curriculum (such as finance, marketing,
and accounting) taken by all business
students (Hoffman, 1999; Wheeler,
Horvath, & Victor, 2001). Mintu and
Lozada (1993), along with Ahna and
Bancroft (1992), contend that support
and encouragement of faculty research
related to environmental issues will
expand student exposure to sustainability concerns because those faculty members will be more likely to incorporate
their research interests and findings into
their classroom experiences. Clearly,
however, an important step toward
increasing student exposure to environmental sustainability issues is to get faculty authors of core business textbooks
to include or increase coverage of sustainability issues (Mintu & Lozada).
There is little formal research related
to teaching materials for effectively
incorporating sustainable marketing
issues in marketing education. Research
that does exist provides general conclusions about the adequacy of sustainable
marketing coverage in core business
curricula. None of the research reports
specific data on the actual extent of coverage of sustainable business practices.
For example, Barnes and Ferry (1992)
discuss why and how environmental marketing issues should be addressed in business school curricula. They compare the
task with the integration of ethics into
business school curricula. For Barnes and
Ferry, environmental marketing should
go beyond separate elective courses and
should be directly incorporated into core
marketing courses. In addition, they
argue that more faculty must be actively
involved in teaching environmentally
sound marketing, cases need to be developed in the area, textbooks should
be rewritten, and courses should be
redesigned.
Mintu and Lozada (1993) propose
similar methods for incorporating sustainable issues into marketing education.
The first step, they say, is to motivate
marketing faculty to pursue sustainable
marketing as a research stream. Mintu
and Lozada (as well as Sheth, 1992) suggest that a more direct integration of sustainability practices into entire marketing
courses is necessary, as opposed to discussing sustainable marketing as a corollary to business ethics or within the
subtopic of social marketing. Not only
should marketing educators evaluate the
structure of their courses for sustainability coverage, but those educators also
should carefully examine the key information source used by students—their
marketing textbook. They also note several specific recent textbooks that have
included or increased their coverage of
marketing’s role in environmental issues.
Still, a comprehensive audit of the available textbooks has yet to be done.
For more than a decade, researchers
have put forth a call for action for the
necessity of integrating sustainable marketing issues into the business school curriculum and into the marketing curriculum. However, what little research exists
on the current state of environmental sustainability in business education indicates
that integration efforts have been limited.
In this study, we explore coverage of sus-
tainable practices in introductory marketing textbooks. Lack of coverage strongly
suggests that the relative inattention to
sustainability issues can be tied to textbook content.
METHOD
Using Books in Print (BIP) and information from publishers, we identified the
available Principles of Marketing textbooks for this audit. Twenty-one textbooks, published by Pearson PrenticeHall, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, South-Western,
Atomic Dog, Thomson, Houghton Mifflin, and Glencoe, were identified as
being available to instructors. Most textbooks (81%) have a publication date
within the last two calendar years (see
Table 1). This list delimited the content
audit. Popular press and general audience
marketing books were not included in this
audit.
Overall Measures of Coverage
For each text, we evaluated page and
chapter exposure of environmentally
sustainable marketing overall and coded
whether each text addressed specific
environmental issues. We determined
page exposure by counting the number
of pages with space devoted to either
discussion or assignments (or both)
related to sustainable marketing practices. We determined chapter exposure
by counting the percentage of chapters
containing sustainable marketing practices content; we did this to find out
whether authors incorporated sustainable marketing practices throughout the
text rather than restrict the discussion to
a relatively small section of the text.
Finally, each textbook was reviewed for
coverage for specific sustainable marketing practices to evaluate the breadth
and depth of coverage of this area.
Coding Specific Sustainable
Marketing Issues Coverage
We identified 14 specific course applications of issues and practices related to
environmentally sustainable marketing,
beginning with previous research by
DeMoss (2002). Then, using input from
several other faculty members at different universities, we expanded the list to
July/August 2005
339
include 21 separate marketing applications. We grouped the applications
according to scope (overall awareness,
strategy and planning, and specific tactics and policies), and we further organized the specific tactics and policies by
the four elements of the marketing mix.
The following list includes the issues
coded for this audit:
Marketing mix element: Product development and management.
6. Creating product packaging and
labeling
7. Developing sustainable new
products
8. Redesigning products for sustainability
9. Using general product tactics
General Environmental Awareness
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
1. Integrating sustainability into
strategic plans
Marketing mix element: Physical distribution.
Within the general product category (12.6% of
coded data), applications primarily involved
materials or production processes.
2. Developing sustainable marketing strategy
3. Market segmenting using environmental awareness
4. Developing strategic alliances for
sustainability
5. Acquiring/requiring environmental certification
10. Developing sustainable channel
operations
11. Creating aftermarket, after-use,
and reverse channels
12. Identifying channel members’
environmental responsibilities
13. General distribution tactics
Marketing mix element: Pricing.
Coverage of Specific Sustainable
Tactics and Policies
14. Using full costing of products
15. Using life cycle costing of products
16. Offering rebates for return or
recycling
17. Using general pricing tactics
Marketing mix element: Promotions.
18. Directing consumers to sustainable products
19. Highlighting the firm’s sustainable practices
20. Explaining the negative impact of
products
21. Using general promotion tactics
The content analysis involved reviewing the most recent edition of introductory marketing textbooks to identify pages
containing sustainable marketing discussions and/or assignments. We counted
any page that contained a reference to
sustainable marketing in general or if it
contained a specific description and/or
example of a sustainable marketing practice. We coded each reference according
to the list above, noting whether the
application was a discussion or an assignment. Over a 3-month period, a trained
graduate student reader coded the text
references, while the authors provided
(minimal) clarification as needed. Periodically, the authors reviewed the coder’s
work. We encountered no problems.
TABLE 1. List of Marketing Principles Textbooks Reviewed
First author
Year
Edition
Title
Publisher
Armstrong
Bearden
Boone
Etzel
Evans
Harrell
Hoffman
Jain
Kerin (1e)
Kerin (7e)
Kotler
Lamb (3e)
Lamb (7e)
Mason
Palmer
Perreault
Pride (1e)
Pride (12e)
Randal
Solomon
Zikmund
2003
2004
2004
2004
2002
2002
2003
2000
2004
2003
2004
2003
2004
1995
1991
2002
2004
2003
2001
2003
2002
6th
4th
11th
13th
8th
2nd
2nd
6th
1st
7th
10th
3rd
7th
5th
2nd
14th
1st
12th
2nd
3rd
3rd
Marketing: An Introduction
Marketing: Principles & Perspectives
Contemporary Marketing
Marketing
Marketing: Marketing in the 21st Century
Marketing: Connecting With Customers
Marketing: Best Practices
Marketing Planning and Strategy
Marketing: The Core
Marketing
Principles of Marketing
Essentials of Marketing
Marketing
Marketing: Practices and Principles
Principles of Marketing
Basic Marketing
Foundation of Marketing
Marketing: Concepts and Strategies
Principles of Marketing
Marketing: Real People, Real Choices
The Power of Effective Marketing
Pearson Prentice-Hall
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
South-Western
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Atomic Dog
Pearson Prentice-Hall
South-Western/Thomson
South-Western
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Pearson Prentice-Hall
South-Western/Thomson
South-Western
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
South-Western
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Thomson
Pearson Prentice-Hall
South-Western/Thomson
340
Journal of Education for Business
TABLE 2. Leading Principles of Marketing Texts Based on Adoptions
Rank
Title
Edition
Author(s)
Extremely high exposure (> 600 adoptions)
1.
Contemporary Marketing
11th
Boone, Kurtz
Very high exposure (> 400 adoptions)
2.
Marketing
7th
3.
Marketing: Concepts and Strategies
12th
Kerin, Berkowitz,
Hartley, Rudelius
Pride, Ferrell
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
High exposure (> 300 adoptions)
4.
5.
6.
Marketing: An Introduction
Principles of Marketing
Basic Marketing
Even though there are four general
categories (one within each element of
the marketing mix), with the exception of
the general product development and
management issues, the general categories comprised a very small percentage
of the coded data (4.8% for distribution,
2.0% for promotion, and 0.6% for pricing). Within the general product category
(12.6% of coded data), applications primarily involved materials or production
processes. Most of the other general references were vague or nonspecific and
could not otherwise be classified. Overall, this coding scheme was sufficient to
assess the overall content of the textbooks.
RESULTS
We organized the analysis around
three sets of data: (a) the overall trends
for coverage of environmentally sustainable marketing practices across all
texts; (b) the coverage patterns of the
market-leading principles of marketing
texts; and (c) the coverage patterns for
specific environmentally sustainable
marketing practices.
Identification of Market Leader Texts
Exposure of the texts in the university
classroom marketplace is a helpful factor
in explaining overall sustainability coverage patterns. We obtained proprietary
text adoption records for a majority of
the texts in our study, with the stipulation
6th
10th
14th
that data be reported in aggregate. We
used this data to rank the available texts
in terms of market exposure (see Table
2). Although adoption records for every
text were not made available (especially
for older or less common textbooks), all
of the major publishers cooperated with
this study. The market leaders are represented in the ranked list based on the
authors’ professional experiences, anecdotal data from other academics in marketing, and a review of the data.
One should note that these ranks
reflect that a professor at a university
has adopted the text, not that an entire
department at the university or college
has adopted it. Thus, colleges and universities may appear on different publishers’ lists but not multiple times on a
single publisher’s list. Only one publisher was willing to provide adoptions
in number of text units sold. The adoptions list includes data from a wide variety of undergraduate programs, from
community colleges to 4-year business
programs accredited by the Association
to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, International (AACSB).
Even though text unit data are not
available for a detailed market share
analysis, one could say that a text with
a large number of adoptions has a
wider exposure and impact than does a
text with fewer adoptions. Texts with
many adopting schools are used to
train many new employees nationwide
and are thus highly influential. Ideally,
the number of students at each college
Armstrong, Kotler
Kotler, Armstrong
Perreault, McCarthy
exposed to each text could be used to
identify market-leading texts, but that
analysis is impossible given the proprietary nature of the information and the
unknown resale market at colleges and
universities.
Based on the available data using
adopting colleges and universities, the
leading six principles of marketing
texts have been identified. These market leaders were sorted into three categories: (a) extremely high exposure
(one text), (b) very high exposure (two
texts), and (c) high exposure (three
texts). Extremely highly exposed texts
have more than 600 separate colleges
or universities adopting them; very
highly exposed texts have more than
400 separate colleges or universities
adopting them; and highly exposed
texts have more than 300 separate colleges or universities adopting them.
The adoptions leader, Contemporary
Marketing, by Boone and Kurtz, has
50% more adopting schools than the
text ranked second.
Overall Coverage Patterns
Across All Texts
The results indicated that coverage of
sustainable practices (either discussion
or assignments) ranges from less than
1% to almost 6%, with no single text
devoting more space than that (see
Table 3). The leader in coverage, Pride
12e, devotes space on 5.86% of text
pages (37 of 631 pages) in some discusJuly/August 2005
341
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
sion or assignment of sustainable marketing practices, whereas both Randal
and Palmer devote space on six or fewer
pages. On average, authors of marketing
principles texts devote space on 2.65%
of their pages to topics related to or
assignments for environmentally sustainable marketing practices. On average, these 21 texts devote less than 2
pages to environmentally sustainable
marketing assignments (1.95 pages) and
14.29 pages of text with discussion. It is
interesting to note that Jain, which has
one of the lowest text page counts for
discussion, has the greatest number of
pages with environmentally sustainable
marketing assignments for out-of-class
work (8 pages).
We examined coverage of environmentally sustainable marketing in texts
by reviewing chapter coverage to see
how pervasive the applications and discussions are throughout the text. For
example, a text may discuss environmentally sustainable marketing in
many chapters, providing a more thorough, lateral application of constructs.
Other texts may devote sections of relatively few chapters, treating environmentally sustainable marketing as a
more topical issue. More widespread
coverage of environmentally sustainable marketing topics in chapters (i.e.,
it is present in more of them) represented greater student exposure to
environmentally sustainable marketing
practices. Students are then exposed to
environmental issues in a variety of
contexts and are less likely to bypass
the topic altogether if the instructor
has no plans to assign specific chapters
or assigns only selected topics in a
chapter.
Results show that only 5 of the 21
reviewed texts have more than 50% of
chapters with environmentally sustainable marketing discussions or assignments (see Table 4). Of these 5 texts with
more coverage across chapters, only one
(Armstrong) is a market-leading text as
defined for this study. On average, texts
have discussions in approximately onethird of their chapters (32.37%) and
assignments in 8.39% of chapters.
Overall Coverage of Environmentally
Sustainable Marketing Topics by
Market Leaders
How does the pattern of coverage of
environmentally sustainable marketing
practices look for the 6 texts identified as
market leaders? Compared with the other
15 texts in the study, the 6 market leaders
(see Table 5) do have more text pages
devoted to environmentally sustainable
marketing discussion and assignments
(20.67 pages compared with 14.47 pages
for the remaining 15 texts). The market
leaders also have slightly more coverage
throughout chapters than the other 15
texts (8.83 chapters vs. 7.80 chapters).
Overall Coverage of Environmentally
Sustainable Marketing Issues
A review of the coverage of specific
environmentally sustainable marketing
topics shows much variation. No single
text addresses all 21 issues. The greatest
number of issues covered is in market
leader Pride 12e (Table 3).
TABLE 3. Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Content in 21 Principles of Marketing Texts
First author
Pages
in text
Total
pages of
ESM coverage
%
Pages with
ESM discussion
%
Pages with
ESM assignments
%
Pride (12e)
Armstrong
Kerin (1e)
Mason
Harrell
Evans
Hoffman
Zikmund
Boone
Bearden
Lamb (3e)
Etzel
Kotler
Kerin (7e)
Pride (1e)
Solomon
Jain
Randal
Palmer
Lamb (7e)
Perreault
631
627
405
565
591
679
647
553
599
596
601
650
661
741
478
616
925
310
408
774
815
37
30
18
23
21
21
19
14
15
14
14
15
15
16
10
11
15
5
6
11
11
5.86
4.78
4.44
4.07
3.55
3.09
2.94
2.53
2.50
2.35
2.33
2.31
2.27
2.16
2.09
1.79
1.62
1.61
1.47
1.42
1.35
34
29
14
20
20
21
16
12
15
14
12
14
13
12
10
9
7
3
5
11
9
5.39
4.63
3.46
3.54
3.38
3.09
2.47
2.17
2.50
2.35
2.00
2.15
1.97
1.62
2.09
1.46
0.76
0.97
1.23
1.42
1.10
3
1
4
3
1
0
3
2
0
0
2
1
2
4
0
2
8
2
1
0
2
0.48
0.16
0.99
0.53
0.17
0.00
0.46
0.36
0.00
0.00
0.33
0.15
0.30
0.54
0.00
0.32
0.86
0.65
0.25
0.00
0.25
12,872
341
2.65
300
2.33
41
0.32
Total
Average
no. pages
342
612.95
Journal of Education for Business
16.24
14.29
1.95
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
TABLE 4. Extent of Coverage of Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Content by Text Chapter
First author
Chapters
in text
Total
chapters with
ESM coverage
%
Chapters with
ESM discussion
%
Chapters with
ESM assignments
%
Etzel
Harrell
Armstrong
Jain
Lamb (3e)
Kerin (1e)
Zikmund
Hoffman
Perreault
Bearden
Kotler
Pride (12e)
Kerin (7e)
Solomon
Lamb (7e)
Evans
Boone
Mason
Pride (1e)
Randal
Palmer
12
18
16
18
16
18
17
15
22
20
20
23
22
18
21
22
19
42
18
18
22
9
13
11
12
10
9
8
7
10
9
9
10
8
6
6
6
5
11
4
4
3
75.00
72.22
68.75
66.67
62.50
50.00
47.06
46.67
45.45
45.00
45.00
43.48
36.36
33.33
28.57
27.27
26.32
26.19
22.22
22.22
13.64
8
12
10
4
8
6
6
5
8
9
8
8
6
4
6
6
5
8
4
2
2
66.67
66.67
62.50
22.22
50.00
33.33
35.29
33.33
36.36
45.00
40.00
34.78
27.27
22.22
28.57
27.27
26.32
19.05
22.22
11.11
9.09
1
1
1
8
2
3
2
2
2
0
1
2
2
2
0
0
0
3
0
2
1
8.33
5.56
6.25
44.44
12.50
16.67
11.76
13.33
9.09
0.00
5.00
8.70
9.09
11.11
0.00
0.00
0.00
7.14
0.00
11.11
4.55
417
170
40.77
135
32.37
35
8.39
Total
Average no.
chapters
19.86
More general strategic marketing
issues such as general environmental
awareness, development of marketing
strategy, and market segmentation are
widely, if not necessarily heavily, covered (see Table 6). General environmental awareness was addressed in all 21
texts reviewed, with both strategy and
segmentation covered in 19 of the 21
texts. Without question, general awareness of the environment is the most
common sustainable marketing issue
discussed, with an average of 11.43 references per text. Note, however, that
Pride 12e has almost twice as many references as the next highest, inflating figures (with Pride 12e excluded, the number of references drops to 10.55).
Still, compared with the other issues,
general environmental awareness gets
roughly twice the coverage as any other
topic (see also Table 7). General strategic discussions predominate over tactical sustainable marketing decisions in
text discussions and assignments. With
the exception of several product-related
issues, the topics with the widest coverage are all general and strategic in
8.10
6.43
nature. Note, however, the sharp decline
after general environmental awareness
in the frequency of text references for
the other issues. General environmental
awareness has 240 text references and
the number two topic, general product
tactics, has 120 text references—and
downward from there.
As noted, product-related issues
receive more coverage than the other elements of the marketing mix. General
product-related issues (primarily related
to production processes) are addressed in
all 21 texts, and the other 3 issues related
to redesign and labeling are among the
top 7 issues covered overall. General distribution-related issues are covered in 18
texts. Reverse distribution channels
receive less coverage (12 texts), with
channel operations (9 texts), and channel
members’ environmental responsibility
(6 texts) having less coverage. Promotions tactics receive only modest coverage. A firm’s ability to promote its environmentally friendly policies is covered
in 13 texts, and a firm’s ability to stimulate demand for consumption of environmentally sound products and services is
1.67
addressed in 11 texts. General promotion
discussion relevant to sustainable marketing (8 texts) gets less coverage, whereas
promotion designed to reduce the negative impact of the firm’s products or services is rarely discussed (4 texts).
Of all the elements of the marketing
mix, pricing lags the most in coverage.
Of the 7 issues with the least coverage, 4
are pricing issues. Even the general discussion of price as it relates to environmentally sustainable marketing practices
is rare (only 4 texts).
Coverage of Environmentally
Sustainable Marketing Issues in
Market Leader Texts
How do the leading texts cover these
specific environmental topics? The 6
leading texts cover an average of 12.17
(out of 21) topics in discussions or
assignments (compared with 10.20 for
the other 15 texts). Moreover, the leading texts had greater coverage of the 7
low frequency issues than the other 15
texts (1.5 vs. .60). Overall, the leading
texts cover a wider range of topics relatJuly/August 2005
343
ed to environmentally sustainable marketing practices than do other texts.
topics at hand. The 21 × 21 (Text ×
Issue) grid of issue coverage shows an
alarming number of empty or sparse
cells. In the grid, 214 cells (48.5%) are
empty and another 40 cells (9.1%) have
three or fewer text references.
In these texts, general awareness, overall strategy, and product issues get the
most exposure in introductory marketing
materials. These inclusions are beneficial
to students. However, pricing, in particular, is a notable weakness in coverage.
This dearth of coverage is perhaps not
unexpected because most introductory
marketing courses and texts treat pricing
very superficially. Marketing students
take accounting and finance courses, and
the pricing impacts of sustainable practices perhaps are addressed in these
courses. The interdisciplinary coverage
of sustainability and pricing is not yet
known, however, and this is an avenue for
future research into the pedagogy of environmentally sustainable practices.
Future research also needs to explore
further the type of discussion included
in textbooks. How many of these references are examples added without
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
DISCUSSION
This study has contributed to the
understanding of how both marketing
and environmental sustainability are
being taught in undergraduate business
programs. These results indicate that
environmental issues are making their
way into introductory textbooks,
although not universally or at high levels of exposure. Although some issues
(general awareness or segmentation)
seem to have at least reasonably widespread coverage, most issues do not. A
review of the data suggests that many
topics receive scant attention in texts.
So, although it may be true that the
topic is “covered” in the textbook, that
coverage may be weak; thus, we caution
readers to interpret these findings carefully and in conjunction with a more
comprehensive analysis of a given text.
One or two brief comments and examples or the isolated review question do
not constitute adequate exposure to the
detailed support or guidance for decision making? The examination of issue
coverage would also benefit by exploring several topics in more detail. For
example, the general product category
deserves closer review for specific patterns and trends, as do the general
awareness and strategy categories.
Why are these environmentally sustainable marketing practices receiving
only marginal coverage? Marketing textbooks, like business strategies, are prone
to fads. Although environmental sustainability has made its way into pedagogy
materials, the topic is clearly not as “hot”
in introductory marketing texts as are ecommerce and globalization. Introductory texts are very large (on average over
600 pages and 19 chapters for a single
semester course); authors and publishers
may perceive that the market will not
absorb an even larger text that covers
more material in more depth.
This problem suggests the alternative
approach. Instead of just adding more
material to current textbooks, the discipline needs a fundamental revision of the
way in which marketing practices are
TABLE 5. Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Content in Six Market Leader Texts, by Pages and
Chapters
First author
No. in
text
Total with
ESM coverage
%
No. with
ESM discussion
%
No. with
ESM assignments
%
Coverage by pages
Boone
Kerin (7e)
Pride (12e)
Armstrong
Kotler
Perreault
Total
Average no.
pages
599
741
631
627
661
815
15
16
37
30
15
11
2.50
2.16
5.86
4.78
2.27
1.35
15
12
34
29
13
9
2.50
1.62
5.39
4.63
1.97
1.10
0
4
3
1
2
2
0.00
0.54
0.48
0.16
0.30
0.25
4,074
124
3.04
112
2.75
12
0.29
679
20.67
18.67
2.00
Coverage by chapters
Boone
Kerin (7e)
Pride (12e)
Armstrong
Perreault
Kotler
Perreault
Total
Average no.
chapters
344
19
22
23
16
22
20
22
5
8
10
11
10
9
10
26.32
36.36
43.48
68.75
45.45
45.00
45.45
5
6
8
10
8
8
8
26.32
27.27
34.78
62.50
36.36
40.00
36.36
0
2
2
1
2
1
2
0.00
9.09
8.70
6.25
9.09
5.00
9.09
122
53
43.44
45
36.89
8
6.56
20.33
8.83
Journal of Education for Business
7.50
1.33
TABLE 6. Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Practices
Rank
Number of
texts covering
Issue
Average number
of text referencesa
Issues with the most exposure
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
General environmental awareness
General product tactics
Marketing strategy
Market segmentation
Product packaging and labeling
New product development
Product redesign
21
21
19
19
19
17
16
11.43
5.71
6.58
4.95
4.42
2.88
3.31
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
Issues with the least exposure
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
Life cycle costing
Environmental certification programs
Strategic alliances developed
Promotion to reduce negative impact
Rebates for recycling/returning unused
Full costing
General pricing tactics
0
1
3
3
3
4
4
0.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.67
1.00
1.25
a
Averages in this table include only texts covering the issue.
TABLE 7. Coverage Frequency by Issue or Topic
Issue or topic
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
General awareness
Developing sustainable strategy
Market segmentation
Strategic alliances
Environmental certification
Product packaging and labeling
Sustainable new products
Redesigning products
General product tactics
Sustainable channel operations
After-use, reverse channels
Channel members’ responsibilities
General distribution tactics
Full costing of products
Life cycle costing of products
Rebates for return or recycling
General pricing tactics
Directing consumers
Highlighting firm’s practices
Explaining the negative impact
General promotion tactics
Total
Total no.
references
%
coded data
Average per
textbooka
240
125
94
3
1
84
49
53
120
15
28
9
46
4
0
5
5
23
30
3
19
25.1
13.1
9.8
0.3
0.1
8.8
5.1
5.5
12.6
1.6
2.9
0.9
4.8
0.4
0.0
0.6
0.6
2.4
3.1
0.3
2.0
11.43
5.95
4.48
0.14
0.05
4.0
2.33
2.52
5.71
0.71
1.33
0.43
2.19
0.19
0.00
0.24
0.24
1.10
1.43
0.14
0.91
956
a
Average calculated using all 21 textbooks.
July/August 2005
345
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
taught—the creation of a text from an
environmentally sensitive point of view.
This introductory marketing text does not
yet exist in the marketplace, although
texts such as Pride 12e and Armstrong
(Table 3) seem to be more environmentally integrated than other texts. Mintu
and Lozada (1993) issued a call for a sustainability-based marketing text a decade
ago—but that demand has remained
unanswered–and if businesses and consumers increasingly are reassessing environmental impact of their products and
processes, business education cannot
afford to be left behind.
346
Journal of Education for Business
REFERENCES
Ahna, B., & Bancroft, S. (1992). Developing an
environmental perspective within business curricula. Journal of Education for Business,
68(2), 70–73.
Barnes, A. J., & Ferry, J. K. (1992). Creating a
niche for the environment in the business school
curriculum. Business Horizons, 34(2), 3–8.
Becker, T. (1997). The greening of a business
school. The Journal of Environmental Education, 28(3), 5–9.
Bunch, R. (1999). Grey pinstripes with green ties:
Preparing environmental leaders. Selections,
15(2), 1–8.
Chapple, M., Powers, N., & Bunch, R. (2003).
Beyond grey pinstripes 2003: Preparing MBAs
for social and environmental stewardship. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute and The
Aspen Institute Business and Society Program.
DeMoss, M. (2002). The greening of marketing
education. In P. Chakrapani & W. Mondal (Eds.),
Proceedings of the American Society of Business
and Behavioral Sciences, 10, 310–314.
Grace, T. (2004, June 12). Hybrid cars in demand.
The Daily Star Online. Retrieved July 19, 2004,
from http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/
2004/06/12/hybrid.html
Hoffman, A. J. (1999). Environmental education
in business schools. Environment, 41(1), 4–5.
Mintu, A. T., & Lozada, H. R. (1993). Green marketing education: A call for action. Marketing
Education Review, 4(Spring), 17–23.
Sheth, J. (1992, February). On the making of environmental managers: Is marketing as “green”
as it should be? Panel discussion, Winter Educators’ Conference, American Marketing Association, San Antonio, TX.
Wheeler, D., Horvath, D., & Victor, P. (2001).
Graduate learning for business and sustainability. Journal of Business Administration and Policy Analysis, 27, 167–187.
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
The Greening of Marketing: An Analysis of
Introductory Textbooks
Michelle Demoss & Carolyn Y. Nicholson
To cite this article: Michelle Demoss & Carolyn Y. Nicholson (2005) The Greening of Marketing:
An Analysis of Introductory Textbooks, Journal of Education for Business, 80:6, 338-346, DOI:
10.3200/JOEB.80.6.338-346
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.80.6.338-346
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 45
View related articles
Citing articles: 2 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 12 January 2016, At: 22:46
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
The Greening of Marketing:
An Analysis of
Introductory Textbooks
MICHELLE DEMOSS
CAROLYN Y. NICHOLSON
Stetson University
Deland, Florida
A
typical current mission statement
for a business school states that it
is the incubator of tomorrow’s business
leaders. This promise requires that
schools and curricula be not only broad
in scope but also forward-looking, educating students to effectively handle the
myriad challenges and issues they will
confront in their careers. However, business schools have yet to incorporate the
vitally important area of environmental
sustainability of business practices and
strategy into their curricula (Becker,
1997; Bunch, 1999).
As a contrast, the business community
has begun to recognize and make environmental issues a priority in its strategic
decisions. Leading organizations are
shifting away from their adversarial
stance toward environmental concerns
and are adopting more environmentally
sustainable practices, both as a hedge
against future costs and as a means of
creating a competitive advantage in the
marketplace. For example, several car
manufacturers, such as Honda and Toyota, have successfully introduced gasoline–electric “hybrid” cars that are experiencing high consumer demand (Grace,
2004). Toyota’s Prius has been named
Motor Trend Magazine’s 2004 Car of the
Year. Ford Motor Company followed suit
with its “full hybrid” SUV Escape (i.e., it
relies even less on gasoline than other
hybrids), which was launched in summer
338
Journal of Education for Business
ABSTRACT. In this study, the authors
examined whether introductory marketing textbooks contain the information that is needed to educate future
business leaders about the important
role of environmentally sustainable
practices. We content-analyzed the 21
current introductory marketing textbooks for coverage of these practices.
The results showed limited, sporadic
coverage of specific issues, with modest exposure to general environmental
awareness. The audit indicated that
exposure in pricing issues is more deficient than in other elements of the marketing mix. The 6 market leader texts
were only marginally better at coverage than were the others. We concluded that, in the case of the environmentally sustainable practices, business
schools have yet to incorporate this
vitally important area into their curricula, in part because available textbooks
lack sufficient coverage.
2004. Lexus announced in a September
2004 press release that prelaunch orders
for its 2006 hybrid SUV, RX400h, are the
highest in the company’s history. More
than ever, the business community needs
business schools to educate and train
future leaders in designing and implementing sustainable business practices.
Although part of the blame for this
dearth of exposure to—much less study
of—environmental issues rests with the
business school, the pedagogy materials
available for instructor and student use
in the classroom (i.e., textbooks) are
perhaps also to blame. In this study, we
content-analyzed the textbooks available for teaching undergraduate principles of marketing to see what and how
extensively environmental sustainability
issues are addressed.
We examined the amount of coverage
of environmentally sustainable marketing issues across all elements of the
marketing mix, both in discussion and
in assignments, in 21 separate current
textbooks. These results provided an
examination of the coverage of sustainable marketing issues and practices in
current marketing textbooks for authors,
publishers, and curriculum coordinators. Educators who want to integrate
environmentally sustainable marketing
into their course materials will find this
study useful in guiding their decisions
about which textbooks they should use.
Teaching Environmental
Sustainability
The World Resources Institute (WRI),
together with the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, biennially
assesses the degree to which business
schools incorporate social and environmental stewardship into curricula. The
study focuses on MBA-level education,
in which business students traditionally
are most exposed to environmentally sustainable strategies. In WRI’s most recent
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
publication (Chapple, Powers, & Bunch,
2003), survey results indicated that the
number of core courses with environmental content is up, but the increase is
not very large. Specifically, 45% of
schools in 2003 required one or more
courses in ethics, sustainability, corporate
social responsibility, or business and
society, compared with 34% in 2001.
It is important to note that WRI’s
results showed that the integration of
environmental issues into other required
core courses (such as accounting,
finance, and marketing) remains severely
limited. WRI points out that these core
courses most powerfully shape the MBA
experience. Thus, these courses are the
most critical for infusing environmental
issues into the curriculum and for providing the best opportunity to ensure that
each student examines environmental
issues before graduating. If this trend
exists for MBA education, how much
worse (or perhaps better) might it be at
the undergraduate level? Although the
examination of textbooks in all undergraduate core areas is beyond the scope
of this project, this study can answer that
question with regard to marketing.
Several researchers have identified
methods to address environmental
issues in the marketing curriculum that
reflect the needs and realities of the
world that graduates will enter. One of
the most practical methods is to ensure
that environmental issues have a pervasive presence in the core business curriculum (such as finance, marketing,
and accounting) taken by all business
students (Hoffman, 1999; Wheeler,
Horvath, & Victor, 2001). Mintu and
Lozada (1993), along with Ahna and
Bancroft (1992), contend that support
and encouragement of faculty research
related to environmental issues will
expand student exposure to sustainability concerns because those faculty members will be more likely to incorporate
their research interests and findings into
their classroom experiences. Clearly,
however, an important step toward
increasing student exposure to environmental sustainability issues is to get faculty authors of core business textbooks
to include or increase coverage of sustainability issues (Mintu & Lozada).
There is little formal research related
to teaching materials for effectively
incorporating sustainable marketing
issues in marketing education. Research
that does exist provides general conclusions about the adequacy of sustainable
marketing coverage in core business
curricula. None of the research reports
specific data on the actual extent of coverage of sustainable business practices.
For example, Barnes and Ferry (1992)
discuss why and how environmental marketing issues should be addressed in business school curricula. They compare the
task with the integration of ethics into
business school curricula. For Barnes and
Ferry, environmental marketing should
go beyond separate elective courses and
should be directly incorporated into core
marketing courses. In addition, they
argue that more faculty must be actively
involved in teaching environmentally
sound marketing, cases need to be developed in the area, textbooks should
be rewritten, and courses should be
redesigned.
Mintu and Lozada (1993) propose
similar methods for incorporating sustainable issues into marketing education.
The first step, they say, is to motivate
marketing faculty to pursue sustainable
marketing as a research stream. Mintu
and Lozada (as well as Sheth, 1992) suggest that a more direct integration of sustainability practices into entire marketing
courses is necessary, as opposed to discussing sustainable marketing as a corollary to business ethics or within the
subtopic of social marketing. Not only
should marketing educators evaluate the
structure of their courses for sustainability coverage, but those educators also
should carefully examine the key information source used by students—their
marketing textbook. They also note several specific recent textbooks that have
included or increased their coverage of
marketing’s role in environmental issues.
Still, a comprehensive audit of the available textbooks has yet to be done.
For more than a decade, researchers
have put forth a call for action for the
necessity of integrating sustainable marketing issues into the business school curriculum and into the marketing curriculum. However, what little research exists
on the current state of environmental sustainability in business education indicates
that integration efforts have been limited.
In this study, we explore coverage of sus-
tainable practices in introductory marketing textbooks. Lack of coverage strongly
suggests that the relative inattention to
sustainability issues can be tied to textbook content.
METHOD
Using Books in Print (BIP) and information from publishers, we identified the
available Principles of Marketing textbooks for this audit. Twenty-one textbooks, published by Pearson PrenticeHall, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, South-Western,
Atomic Dog, Thomson, Houghton Mifflin, and Glencoe, were identified as
being available to instructors. Most textbooks (81%) have a publication date
within the last two calendar years (see
Table 1). This list delimited the content
audit. Popular press and general audience
marketing books were not included in this
audit.
Overall Measures of Coverage
For each text, we evaluated page and
chapter exposure of environmentally
sustainable marketing overall and coded
whether each text addressed specific
environmental issues. We determined
page exposure by counting the number
of pages with space devoted to either
discussion or assignments (or both)
related to sustainable marketing practices. We determined chapter exposure
by counting the percentage of chapters
containing sustainable marketing practices content; we did this to find out
whether authors incorporated sustainable marketing practices throughout the
text rather than restrict the discussion to
a relatively small section of the text.
Finally, each textbook was reviewed for
coverage for specific sustainable marketing practices to evaluate the breadth
and depth of coverage of this area.
Coding Specific Sustainable
Marketing Issues Coverage
We identified 14 specific course applications of issues and practices related to
environmentally sustainable marketing,
beginning with previous research by
DeMoss (2002). Then, using input from
several other faculty members at different universities, we expanded the list to
July/August 2005
339
include 21 separate marketing applications. We grouped the applications
according to scope (overall awareness,
strategy and planning, and specific tactics and policies), and we further organized the specific tactics and policies by
the four elements of the marketing mix.
The following list includes the issues
coded for this audit:
Marketing mix element: Product development and management.
6. Creating product packaging and
labeling
7. Developing sustainable new
products
8. Redesigning products for sustainability
9. Using general product tactics
General Environmental Awareness
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
1. Integrating sustainability into
strategic plans
Marketing mix element: Physical distribution.
Within the general product category (12.6% of
coded data), applications primarily involved
materials or production processes.
2. Developing sustainable marketing strategy
3. Market segmenting using environmental awareness
4. Developing strategic alliances for
sustainability
5. Acquiring/requiring environmental certification
10. Developing sustainable channel
operations
11. Creating aftermarket, after-use,
and reverse channels
12. Identifying channel members’
environmental responsibilities
13. General distribution tactics
Marketing mix element: Pricing.
Coverage of Specific Sustainable
Tactics and Policies
14. Using full costing of products
15. Using life cycle costing of products
16. Offering rebates for return or
recycling
17. Using general pricing tactics
Marketing mix element: Promotions.
18. Directing consumers to sustainable products
19. Highlighting the firm’s sustainable practices
20. Explaining the negative impact of
products
21. Using general promotion tactics
The content analysis involved reviewing the most recent edition of introductory marketing textbooks to identify pages
containing sustainable marketing discussions and/or assignments. We counted
any page that contained a reference to
sustainable marketing in general or if it
contained a specific description and/or
example of a sustainable marketing practice. We coded each reference according
to the list above, noting whether the
application was a discussion or an assignment. Over a 3-month period, a trained
graduate student reader coded the text
references, while the authors provided
(minimal) clarification as needed. Periodically, the authors reviewed the coder’s
work. We encountered no problems.
TABLE 1. List of Marketing Principles Textbooks Reviewed
First author
Year
Edition
Title
Publisher
Armstrong
Bearden
Boone
Etzel
Evans
Harrell
Hoffman
Jain
Kerin (1e)
Kerin (7e)
Kotler
Lamb (3e)
Lamb (7e)
Mason
Palmer
Perreault
Pride (1e)
Pride (12e)
Randal
Solomon
Zikmund
2003
2004
2004
2004
2002
2002
2003
2000
2004
2003
2004
2003
2004
1995
1991
2002
2004
2003
2001
2003
2002
6th
4th
11th
13th
8th
2nd
2nd
6th
1st
7th
10th
3rd
7th
5th
2nd
14th
1st
12th
2nd
3rd
3rd
Marketing: An Introduction
Marketing: Principles & Perspectives
Contemporary Marketing
Marketing
Marketing: Marketing in the 21st Century
Marketing: Connecting With Customers
Marketing: Best Practices
Marketing Planning and Strategy
Marketing: The Core
Marketing
Principles of Marketing
Essentials of Marketing
Marketing
Marketing: Practices and Principles
Principles of Marketing
Basic Marketing
Foundation of Marketing
Marketing: Concepts and Strategies
Principles of Marketing
Marketing: Real People, Real Choices
The Power of Effective Marketing
Pearson Prentice-Hall
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
South-Western
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Atomic Dog
Pearson Prentice-Hall
South-Western/Thomson
South-Western
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Pearson Prentice-Hall
South-Western/Thomson
South-Western
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
South-Western
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Thomson
Pearson Prentice-Hall
South-Western/Thomson
340
Journal of Education for Business
TABLE 2. Leading Principles of Marketing Texts Based on Adoptions
Rank
Title
Edition
Author(s)
Extremely high exposure (> 600 adoptions)
1.
Contemporary Marketing
11th
Boone, Kurtz
Very high exposure (> 400 adoptions)
2.
Marketing
7th
3.
Marketing: Concepts and Strategies
12th
Kerin, Berkowitz,
Hartley, Rudelius
Pride, Ferrell
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
High exposure (> 300 adoptions)
4.
5.
6.
Marketing: An Introduction
Principles of Marketing
Basic Marketing
Even though there are four general
categories (one within each element of
the marketing mix), with the exception of
the general product development and
management issues, the general categories comprised a very small percentage
of the coded data (4.8% for distribution,
2.0% for promotion, and 0.6% for pricing). Within the general product category
(12.6% of coded data), applications primarily involved materials or production
processes. Most of the other general references were vague or nonspecific and
could not otherwise be classified. Overall, this coding scheme was sufficient to
assess the overall content of the textbooks.
RESULTS
We organized the analysis around
three sets of data: (a) the overall trends
for coverage of environmentally sustainable marketing practices across all
texts; (b) the coverage patterns of the
market-leading principles of marketing
texts; and (c) the coverage patterns for
specific environmentally sustainable
marketing practices.
Identification of Market Leader Texts
Exposure of the texts in the university
classroom marketplace is a helpful factor
in explaining overall sustainability coverage patterns. We obtained proprietary
text adoption records for a majority of
the texts in our study, with the stipulation
6th
10th
14th
that data be reported in aggregate. We
used this data to rank the available texts
in terms of market exposure (see Table
2). Although adoption records for every
text were not made available (especially
for older or less common textbooks), all
of the major publishers cooperated with
this study. The market leaders are represented in the ranked list based on the
authors’ professional experiences, anecdotal data from other academics in marketing, and a review of the data.
One should note that these ranks
reflect that a professor at a university
has adopted the text, not that an entire
department at the university or college
has adopted it. Thus, colleges and universities may appear on different publishers’ lists but not multiple times on a
single publisher’s list. Only one publisher was willing to provide adoptions
in number of text units sold. The adoptions list includes data from a wide variety of undergraduate programs, from
community colleges to 4-year business
programs accredited by the Association
to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, International (AACSB).
Even though text unit data are not
available for a detailed market share
analysis, one could say that a text with
a large number of adoptions has a
wider exposure and impact than does a
text with fewer adoptions. Texts with
many adopting schools are used to
train many new employees nationwide
and are thus highly influential. Ideally,
the number of students at each college
Armstrong, Kotler
Kotler, Armstrong
Perreault, McCarthy
exposed to each text could be used to
identify market-leading texts, but that
analysis is impossible given the proprietary nature of the information and the
unknown resale market at colleges and
universities.
Based on the available data using
adopting colleges and universities, the
leading six principles of marketing
texts have been identified. These market leaders were sorted into three categories: (a) extremely high exposure
(one text), (b) very high exposure (two
texts), and (c) high exposure (three
texts). Extremely highly exposed texts
have more than 600 separate colleges
or universities adopting them; very
highly exposed texts have more than
400 separate colleges or universities
adopting them; and highly exposed
texts have more than 300 separate colleges or universities adopting them.
The adoptions leader, Contemporary
Marketing, by Boone and Kurtz, has
50% more adopting schools than the
text ranked second.
Overall Coverage Patterns
Across All Texts
The results indicated that coverage of
sustainable practices (either discussion
or assignments) ranges from less than
1% to almost 6%, with no single text
devoting more space than that (see
Table 3). The leader in coverage, Pride
12e, devotes space on 5.86% of text
pages (37 of 631 pages) in some discusJuly/August 2005
341
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
sion or assignment of sustainable marketing practices, whereas both Randal
and Palmer devote space on six or fewer
pages. On average, authors of marketing
principles texts devote space on 2.65%
of their pages to topics related to or
assignments for environmentally sustainable marketing practices. On average, these 21 texts devote less than 2
pages to environmentally sustainable
marketing assignments (1.95 pages) and
14.29 pages of text with discussion. It is
interesting to note that Jain, which has
one of the lowest text page counts for
discussion, has the greatest number of
pages with environmentally sustainable
marketing assignments for out-of-class
work (8 pages).
We examined coverage of environmentally sustainable marketing in texts
by reviewing chapter coverage to see
how pervasive the applications and discussions are throughout the text. For
example, a text may discuss environmentally sustainable marketing in
many chapters, providing a more thorough, lateral application of constructs.
Other texts may devote sections of relatively few chapters, treating environmentally sustainable marketing as a
more topical issue. More widespread
coverage of environmentally sustainable marketing topics in chapters (i.e.,
it is present in more of them) represented greater student exposure to
environmentally sustainable marketing
practices. Students are then exposed to
environmental issues in a variety of
contexts and are less likely to bypass
the topic altogether if the instructor
has no plans to assign specific chapters
or assigns only selected topics in a
chapter.
Results show that only 5 of the 21
reviewed texts have more than 50% of
chapters with environmentally sustainable marketing discussions or assignments (see Table 4). Of these 5 texts with
more coverage across chapters, only one
(Armstrong) is a market-leading text as
defined for this study. On average, texts
have discussions in approximately onethird of their chapters (32.37%) and
assignments in 8.39% of chapters.
Overall Coverage of Environmentally
Sustainable Marketing Topics by
Market Leaders
How does the pattern of coverage of
environmentally sustainable marketing
practices look for the 6 texts identified as
market leaders? Compared with the other
15 texts in the study, the 6 market leaders
(see Table 5) do have more text pages
devoted to environmentally sustainable
marketing discussion and assignments
(20.67 pages compared with 14.47 pages
for the remaining 15 texts). The market
leaders also have slightly more coverage
throughout chapters than the other 15
texts (8.83 chapters vs. 7.80 chapters).
Overall Coverage of Environmentally
Sustainable Marketing Issues
A review of the coverage of specific
environmentally sustainable marketing
topics shows much variation. No single
text addresses all 21 issues. The greatest
number of issues covered is in market
leader Pride 12e (Table 3).
TABLE 3. Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Content in 21 Principles of Marketing Texts
First author
Pages
in text
Total
pages of
ESM coverage
%
Pages with
ESM discussion
%
Pages with
ESM assignments
%
Pride (12e)
Armstrong
Kerin (1e)
Mason
Harrell
Evans
Hoffman
Zikmund
Boone
Bearden
Lamb (3e)
Etzel
Kotler
Kerin (7e)
Pride (1e)
Solomon
Jain
Randal
Palmer
Lamb (7e)
Perreault
631
627
405
565
591
679
647
553
599
596
601
650
661
741
478
616
925
310
408
774
815
37
30
18
23
21
21
19
14
15
14
14
15
15
16
10
11
15
5
6
11
11
5.86
4.78
4.44
4.07
3.55
3.09
2.94
2.53
2.50
2.35
2.33
2.31
2.27
2.16
2.09
1.79
1.62
1.61
1.47
1.42
1.35
34
29
14
20
20
21
16
12
15
14
12
14
13
12
10
9
7
3
5
11
9
5.39
4.63
3.46
3.54
3.38
3.09
2.47
2.17
2.50
2.35
2.00
2.15
1.97
1.62
2.09
1.46
0.76
0.97
1.23
1.42
1.10
3
1
4
3
1
0
3
2
0
0
2
1
2
4
0
2
8
2
1
0
2
0.48
0.16
0.99
0.53
0.17
0.00
0.46
0.36
0.00
0.00
0.33
0.15
0.30
0.54
0.00
0.32
0.86
0.65
0.25
0.00
0.25
12,872
341
2.65
300
2.33
41
0.32
Total
Average
no. pages
342
612.95
Journal of Education for Business
16.24
14.29
1.95
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
TABLE 4. Extent of Coverage of Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Content by Text Chapter
First author
Chapters
in text
Total
chapters with
ESM coverage
%
Chapters with
ESM discussion
%
Chapters with
ESM assignments
%
Etzel
Harrell
Armstrong
Jain
Lamb (3e)
Kerin (1e)
Zikmund
Hoffman
Perreault
Bearden
Kotler
Pride (12e)
Kerin (7e)
Solomon
Lamb (7e)
Evans
Boone
Mason
Pride (1e)
Randal
Palmer
12
18
16
18
16
18
17
15
22
20
20
23
22
18
21
22
19
42
18
18
22
9
13
11
12
10
9
8
7
10
9
9
10
8
6
6
6
5
11
4
4
3
75.00
72.22
68.75
66.67
62.50
50.00
47.06
46.67
45.45
45.00
45.00
43.48
36.36
33.33
28.57
27.27
26.32
26.19
22.22
22.22
13.64
8
12
10
4
8
6
6
5
8
9
8
8
6
4
6
6
5
8
4
2
2
66.67
66.67
62.50
22.22
50.00
33.33
35.29
33.33
36.36
45.00
40.00
34.78
27.27
22.22
28.57
27.27
26.32
19.05
22.22
11.11
9.09
1
1
1
8
2
3
2
2
2
0
1
2
2
2
0
0
0
3
0
2
1
8.33
5.56
6.25
44.44
12.50
16.67
11.76
13.33
9.09
0.00
5.00
8.70
9.09
11.11
0.00
0.00
0.00
7.14
0.00
11.11
4.55
417
170
40.77
135
32.37
35
8.39
Total
Average no.
chapters
19.86
More general strategic marketing
issues such as general environmental
awareness, development of marketing
strategy, and market segmentation are
widely, if not necessarily heavily, covered (see Table 6). General environmental awareness was addressed in all 21
texts reviewed, with both strategy and
segmentation covered in 19 of the 21
texts. Without question, general awareness of the environment is the most
common sustainable marketing issue
discussed, with an average of 11.43 references per text. Note, however, that
Pride 12e has almost twice as many references as the next highest, inflating figures (with Pride 12e excluded, the number of references drops to 10.55).
Still, compared with the other issues,
general environmental awareness gets
roughly twice the coverage as any other
topic (see also Table 7). General strategic discussions predominate over tactical sustainable marketing decisions in
text discussions and assignments. With
the exception of several product-related
issues, the topics with the widest coverage are all general and strategic in
8.10
6.43
nature. Note, however, the sharp decline
after general environmental awareness
in the frequency of text references for
the other issues. General environmental
awareness has 240 text references and
the number two topic, general product
tactics, has 120 text references—and
downward from there.
As noted, product-related issues
receive more coverage than the other elements of the marketing mix. General
product-related issues (primarily related
to production processes) are addressed in
all 21 texts, and the other 3 issues related
to redesign and labeling are among the
top 7 issues covered overall. General distribution-related issues are covered in 18
texts. Reverse distribution channels
receive less coverage (12 texts), with
channel operations (9 texts), and channel
members’ environmental responsibility
(6 texts) having less coverage. Promotions tactics receive only modest coverage. A firm’s ability to promote its environmentally friendly policies is covered
in 13 texts, and a firm’s ability to stimulate demand for consumption of environmentally sound products and services is
1.67
addressed in 11 texts. General promotion
discussion relevant to sustainable marketing (8 texts) gets less coverage, whereas
promotion designed to reduce the negative impact of the firm’s products or services is rarely discussed (4 texts).
Of all the elements of the marketing
mix, pricing lags the most in coverage.
Of the 7 issues with the least coverage, 4
are pricing issues. Even the general discussion of price as it relates to environmentally sustainable marketing practices
is rare (only 4 texts).
Coverage of Environmentally
Sustainable Marketing Issues in
Market Leader Texts
How do the leading texts cover these
specific environmental topics? The 6
leading texts cover an average of 12.17
(out of 21) topics in discussions or
assignments (compared with 10.20 for
the other 15 texts). Moreover, the leading texts had greater coverage of the 7
low frequency issues than the other 15
texts (1.5 vs. .60). Overall, the leading
texts cover a wider range of topics relatJuly/August 2005
343
ed to environmentally sustainable marketing practices than do other texts.
topics at hand. The 21 × 21 (Text ×
Issue) grid of issue coverage shows an
alarming number of empty or sparse
cells. In the grid, 214 cells (48.5%) are
empty and another 40 cells (9.1%) have
three or fewer text references.
In these texts, general awareness, overall strategy, and product issues get the
most exposure in introductory marketing
materials. These inclusions are beneficial
to students. However, pricing, in particular, is a notable weakness in coverage.
This dearth of coverage is perhaps not
unexpected because most introductory
marketing courses and texts treat pricing
very superficially. Marketing students
take accounting and finance courses, and
the pricing impacts of sustainable practices perhaps are addressed in these
courses. The interdisciplinary coverage
of sustainability and pricing is not yet
known, however, and this is an avenue for
future research into the pedagogy of environmentally sustainable practices.
Future research also needs to explore
further the type of discussion included
in textbooks. How many of these references are examples added without
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
DISCUSSION
This study has contributed to the
understanding of how both marketing
and environmental sustainability are
being taught in undergraduate business
programs. These results indicate that
environmental issues are making their
way into introductory textbooks,
although not universally or at high levels of exposure. Although some issues
(general awareness or segmentation)
seem to have at least reasonably widespread coverage, most issues do not. A
review of the data suggests that many
topics receive scant attention in texts.
So, although it may be true that the
topic is “covered” in the textbook, that
coverage may be weak; thus, we caution
readers to interpret these findings carefully and in conjunction with a more
comprehensive analysis of a given text.
One or two brief comments and examples or the isolated review question do
not constitute adequate exposure to the
detailed support or guidance for decision making? The examination of issue
coverage would also benefit by exploring several topics in more detail. For
example, the general product category
deserves closer review for specific patterns and trends, as do the general
awareness and strategy categories.
Why are these environmentally sustainable marketing practices receiving
only marginal coverage? Marketing textbooks, like business strategies, are prone
to fads. Although environmental sustainability has made its way into pedagogy
materials, the topic is clearly not as “hot”
in introductory marketing texts as are ecommerce and globalization. Introductory texts are very large (on average over
600 pages and 19 chapters for a single
semester course); authors and publishers
may perceive that the market will not
absorb an even larger text that covers
more material in more depth.
This problem suggests the alternative
approach. Instead of just adding more
material to current textbooks, the discipline needs a fundamental revision of the
way in which marketing practices are
TABLE 5. Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Content in Six Market Leader Texts, by Pages and
Chapters
First author
No. in
text
Total with
ESM coverage
%
No. with
ESM discussion
%
No. with
ESM assignments
%
Coverage by pages
Boone
Kerin (7e)
Pride (12e)
Armstrong
Kotler
Perreault
Total
Average no.
pages
599
741
631
627
661
815
15
16
37
30
15
11
2.50
2.16
5.86
4.78
2.27
1.35
15
12
34
29
13
9
2.50
1.62
5.39
4.63
1.97
1.10
0
4
3
1
2
2
0.00
0.54
0.48
0.16
0.30
0.25
4,074
124
3.04
112
2.75
12
0.29
679
20.67
18.67
2.00
Coverage by chapters
Boone
Kerin (7e)
Pride (12e)
Armstrong
Perreault
Kotler
Perreault
Total
Average no.
chapters
344
19
22
23
16
22
20
22
5
8
10
11
10
9
10
26.32
36.36
43.48
68.75
45.45
45.00
45.45
5
6
8
10
8
8
8
26.32
27.27
34.78
62.50
36.36
40.00
36.36
0
2
2
1
2
1
2
0.00
9.09
8.70
6.25
9.09
5.00
9.09
122
53
43.44
45
36.89
8
6.56
20.33
8.83
Journal of Education for Business
7.50
1.33
TABLE 6. Environmentally Sustainable Marketing (ESM) Practices
Rank
Number of
texts covering
Issue
Average number
of text referencesa
Issues with the most exposure
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
General environmental awareness
General product tactics
Marketing strategy
Market segmentation
Product packaging and labeling
New product development
Product redesign
21
21
19
19
19
17
16
11.43
5.71
6.58
4.95
4.42
2.88
3.31
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
Issues with the least exposure
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
Life cycle costing
Environmental certification programs
Strategic alliances developed
Promotion to reduce negative impact
Rebates for recycling/returning unused
Full costing
General pricing tactics
0
1
3
3
3
4
4
0.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.67
1.00
1.25
a
Averages in this table include only texts covering the issue.
TABLE 7. Coverage Frequency by Issue or Topic
Issue or topic
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
General awareness
Developing sustainable strategy
Market segmentation
Strategic alliances
Environmental certification
Product packaging and labeling
Sustainable new products
Redesigning products
General product tactics
Sustainable channel operations
After-use, reverse channels
Channel members’ responsibilities
General distribution tactics
Full costing of products
Life cycle costing of products
Rebates for return or recycling
General pricing tactics
Directing consumers
Highlighting firm’s practices
Explaining the negative impact
General promotion tactics
Total
Total no.
references
%
coded data
Average per
textbooka
240
125
94
3
1
84
49
53
120
15
28
9
46
4
0
5
5
23
30
3
19
25.1
13.1
9.8
0.3
0.1
8.8
5.1
5.5
12.6
1.6
2.9
0.9
4.8
0.4
0.0
0.6
0.6
2.4
3.1
0.3
2.0
11.43
5.95
4.48
0.14
0.05
4.0
2.33
2.52
5.71
0.71
1.33
0.43
2.19
0.19
0.00
0.24
0.24
1.10
1.43
0.14
0.91
956
a
Average calculated using all 21 textbooks.
July/August 2005
345
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:46 12 January 2016
taught—the creation of a text from an
environmentally sensitive point of view.
This introductory marketing text does not
yet exist in the marketplace, although
texts such as Pride 12e and Armstrong
(Table 3) seem to be more environmentally integrated than other texts. Mintu
and Lozada (1993) issued a call for a sustainability-based marketing text a decade
ago—but that demand has remained
unanswered–and if businesses and consumers increasingly are reassessing environmental impact of their products and
processes, business education cannot
afford to be left behind.
346
Journal of Education for Business
REFERENCES
Ahna, B., & Bancroft, S. (1992). Developing an
environmental perspective within business curricula. Journal of Education for Business,
68(2), 70–73.
Barnes, A. J., & Ferry, J. K. (1992). Creating a
niche for the environment in the business school
curriculum. Business Horizons, 34(2), 3–8.
Becker, T. (1997). The greening of a business
school. The Journal of Environmental Education, 28(3), 5–9.
Bunch, R. (1999). Grey pinstripes with green ties:
Preparing environmental leaders. Selections,
15(2), 1–8.
Chapple, M., Powers, N., & Bunch, R. (2003).
Beyond grey pinstripes 2003: Preparing MBAs
for social and environmental stewardship. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute and The
Aspen Institute Business and Society Program.
DeMoss, M. (2002). The greening of marketing
education. In P. Chakrapani & W. Mondal (Eds.),
Proceedings of the American Society of Business
and Behavioral Sciences, 10, 310–314.
Grace, T. (2004, June 12). Hybrid cars in demand.
The Daily Star Online. Retrieved July 19, 2004,
from http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/
2004/06/12/hybrid.html
Hoffman, A. J. (1999). Environmental education
in business schools. Environment, 41(1), 4–5.
Mintu, A. T., & Lozada, H. R. (1993). Green marketing education: A call for action. Marketing
Education Review, 4(Spring), 17–23.
Sheth, J. (1992, February). On the making of environmental managers: Is marketing as “green”
as it should be? Panel discussion, Winter Educators’ Conference, American Marketing Association, San Antonio, TX.
Wheeler, D., Horvath, D., & Victor, P. (2001).
Graduate learning for business and sustainability. Journal of Business Administration and Policy Analysis, 27, 167–187.