Green marketing strategies: an examination of stakeholders and the opportunities they present

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2011) 39:158174 DOI 10.1007/s11747-010-0227-0

Green marketing strategies: an examination of stakeholders and the opportunities they present

J. Joseph Cronin, Jr & Jeffery S. Smith &

Mark R. Gleim & Edward Ramirez &

Jennifer Dawn Martinez

Received: 31 December 2009 /Accepted: 15 September 2010 /Published online: 6 October 2010 # Academy of Marketing Science 2010

Abstract As green marketing strategies become increasingly more important to firms adhering to a triple-bottom line performance evaluation, the present research seeks to better understand the role of green as a marketing strategy. Through an integration of the marketing, management, and operations literatures, an investigative framework is generated that identifies the various stakeholders potentially impacted through the environmentally friendly efforts of a firm. Specifically, the inter-connected nature of the core business disciplines of marketing, management (both strategy

and human resources), and operations are examined as controllable functions within an organization from which strategies can be enacted to affect a firms stakeholders. The prior research in these areas is examined to identify potential research opportunities in marketing while also offering a series of representative research questions that can help guide future research in marketing.

Keywords Green marketing strategy. Environmental strategy . Stakeholder analysis

Introduction

As firms note the positive gains that can accrue through environmentally friendly marketing strategies (e.g., Luo and Bhattacharya 2006) and the potential pitfalls associated with non-environmentally friendly strategies, going green is beginning to take center stage in boardrooms around the world. There is a growing interest among top managers, stakeholders and academics regarding green marketing strategies and the potential impact on the triple-bottom line. Firms are increasingly adhering to a triple-bottom line performance evaluation, a concept coined to reflect the growing tendency of stakeholders to evaluate organizational performance on the basis of economic prosperity (i.e., profits), environmental quality (i.e., the planet), and social justice (i.e., people)1 (Elkington 1997).

The recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico typifies the impact that an environmental disaster can have on a firms triple-bottom line. Not only has BPs stock price plummeted and credit rating been lowered (Guitierrez 2010), but

1 For the remainder of the paper, we use the triple-bottom line and people/profit/planet (or 3P) concepts interchangeably.

This research was supported by the Institute...