Well-Being in a Global World—The Role of International Marketing: An Editorial

Abstract

The notion that marketing can be a force for good has been around for at least five decades (e.g., Kotler and Levy 1969; Kotler and Zaltman 1971), and as marketing scholars, we are proud of the value that marketing can bring to society. However, we often face tough questions regarding marketing’s dark side; is it the discipline that “is used to create and sustain the power of multinational corporations? Promoting the consumerism that is ruining our world? The never-ending advertising efforts to convince people to buy things they do not need?” (Lefebvre 2013, p. 1, preface). Facing growing criticism on the one hand (Kohli and Haenlein 2021; Mende and Misra 2021) and an increased understanding that societies face “grand” societal challenges (such as climate change, diversity and inclusion, and inequality) on the other hand—what has been the marketing scholarly community’s response?While the marketing discipline has begun to address these challenges, this work is still considered a niche rather than mainstream area of investigation. In the top four marketing journals (Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Marketing Science), only 108 (out of 1,088) articles published during 2012–2016 address socially responsible topics (around 10%, compared with 15% at the top management journals; Ozturan and Grinstein 2017). Similarly, an analysis of sustainability-related articles in six marketing journals (the top four plus International Journal of Research in Marketing and Journal of Consumer Psychology) over a ten-year period reveals an average of about two articles per year per journal (Bolderdijk, Grinstein, and Risselada 2022). But things are changing. Mainstream marketing scholars and journals have begun putting society’s most pressing problems front and center. For example, Journal of Marketing’s special issue on “Marketing for a Better World” (Chandy et al. 2021) received 239 submissions, reflecting the growing interest in societal issues. Other examples include the Journal of Consumer Psychology’s special issue on “Consumer Psychology for the Greater Good” (Labroo and Goldsmith 2021) and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science’s editorial on responsible research in marketing (Haenlein et al. 2021). The trend reflected in the aforementioned research is important for responsible marketers, consumers, policy makers, and nonprofit organizations, as well as for marketing as a discipline, driving scholars to examine important questions (Kohli and Haenlein 2021). Given this background, what is the role of the international marketing community?We believe the international marketing field is well-positioned to tackle many societal problems. First, most grand societal problems and responses to them are global in nature (Hewett, Okazaki, and Price 2022). Climate change, poverty, health care and education access, social injustice, inequality, immigration, minorities’ rights, corruption, privacy concerns, mental health concerns—these are all challenges faced by governments, citizens and consumers, and for-profit and nonprofit organizations across the globe. Second, collaboration among actors across sectors, industries, and countries is essential to effectively address them. As such, local and global actors as well as national and international institutions must collaborate. While many problems have similar properties, differences across countries and cultures are critical in explaining different interventions and policies, as well as public response and efficacy levels. Finally, the need to account for country and culture differences when addressing grand societal problems as well as the importance of international marketing became clearer during the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the intertwined nature of global and local challenges and interventions. Although we witnessed progress on the study of societal issues in a global context (e.g., special issues in the Journal of International Business Studies [Rodriguez et al. 2006] and Journal of World Business [Shapiro, Hobdari, and Oh 2018]), international marketing is also starting to see its role more fully than before. In recent years, the Journal of International Marketing (JIM) has increasingly published articles addressing business and society (e.g., Heinberg