By being firm-centric, customer-oriented and excessively reliant on managerial and technological expertise, sustainable marketing neglects the relevance of multiple stakeholder perspectives and other forms of knowing in promoting sustainability. Knowledge and practices beyond those implied by marketing and science are essential to help managers understand and critically assess what they do and what implications these actions might have for them, the environment and society.
In his dissertation, José-Carlos García-Rosell critically examines the contemporary understanding and conceptualization of sustainable marketing. According to his research, the problem with marketing approaches to sustainability is the obsession to view environmental and social issues as technical elements that can be adopted without critical scrutiny.
– The meaning and values of sustainability are not fixed but continuously shaped through a wide array of multi-stakeholder discourses available within a particular market context. The ability to look into economic, social and ecological considerations from different stakeholder perspectives is an essential skill to understand the complexities of sustainability and to develop effective socially responsible marketing strategies, García-Rosell argues.
Rather than simply extending the notion of customer satisfaction to include other stakeholders, managers should pay greater attention to multi-stakeholder cooperation as an opportunity to learn through their knowledge and practices. The development of new, more sustainable ways of organizing, managing and relating in the marketplace relies on the ability to promote mutual knowledge-building between managers, researchers and other stakeholders.
García-Rosell’s research also concerns education. Rather than providing guidance on how to behave in a socially responsible manner, sustainability teaching should focus on enabling students to question the status quo as a basis for working towards more sustainable and ethical ways of managing organizations.
– Teachers should encourage and allow students to approach sustainability from a perspective other than the managerial one. Stakeholder voices, which are usually silenced or neglected within business classrooms, offer a fertile ground for establishing dialogues and relationships that foster sustainability learning and give students the opportunity to reevaluate their identity as managers, says García-Rosell.
García-Rosell’s dissertation articulates a general critique and evaluation of the way sustainability is defined and approached within marketing. It also offers a concrete approach for advancing sustainable marketing in both theory and practice.
Information on the public examination of the thesis:
José-Carlos García-Rosell’s doctoral dissertation A Multi-stakeholder Perspective on Sustainable Marketing: Promoting Sustainability through Action and Research is to be publicly defended under the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences on 22th of February 2013 at 12–15 at University of Lapland at lecture hall Fellman (lecture hall 1, Yliopistonkatu 8, Rovaniemi). The opponent is research professor Eva Heiskanen from the Finnish National Consumer Research Centre. The custodian is professor Anu Valtonen from University of Lapland.
Information on the doctoral candidate:
José-Carlos García-Rosell Eskenazi (born in 1975 in Lima, Peru) graduated from Santo Tomás de Aquino Catholic High School in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1992. He completed a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Economics at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna in Austria in 2001 and a Licentiate Degree in Economics and Business Administration at the University of Oulu, Finland in 2009.
García-Rosell works as a University Teacher at the Multidimensional Tourism Institute (MTI). Since 2006 he has worked as a researcher, teacher and business developer at the University of Lapland and the Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences. He has been Research Assistant in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the BOKU (2000–2001) and in Agrifood Research Finland (2004). Before his academic career Garcia-Rosell worked in his family business in Venezuela. García‐Rosell has participated in several research and development projects and held several positions of trust at the BOKU, University of Lapland, MTI and Finnish public organizations.
Additional information:
Researcher José-Carlos García-Rosell, tel. +358 40 484 4190, jgarcia(at)ulapland.fi. Press copies of the thesis are available at Lapland University Press, tel. +358 40 821 4242, publications(at)ulapland.fi. Photograph of the candidate is available at Communications and External Relations of University of Lapland, irma.varrio(at)ulapland.fi.
Information on the Publication:
José-Carlos García-Rosell: A Multi-stakeholder Perspective on Sustainable Marketing: Promoting Sustainability through Action and Research. Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis 247. Lapland University Press: Rovaniemi 2013. ISBN 978-952-484-611-0, ISSN 0788-7604
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