A Transformative Orientation Model for Encouraging Responsible Marketing Actions

Abstract

This set of studies tackles a timely, important, yet often overlooked component of marketing—encouraging marketing actors to engage in a socially just and responsible orientation to improve decision-making. We build on ethical, sustainable, social justice, and social marketing pedagogy by combining transformative learning theories with stakeholder recognition to provide a model that explains how marketers can develop a transformative orientation. With five studies, including three semester-long field experiments, one natural experiment/event study on Black Lives Matter Google searches, and a lab experiment, we present captivating empirical evidence that market actors can change their orientation to be more responsible and just. The model recognizes the importance of using a balanced frame of reference for marketing, and how this is mediated by metacognition activation and perspective gathering. This paper provides initial empirical evidence demonstrating how the way marketing materials are presented can improve the degree of transformation.