Special Issue on Macromarketing Responses to a Changing Climate

Call for Papers

The Journal of Macromarketing invites original submissions for a special issue on Macromarketing Responses to a Changing Climate. Purpose of the SI is an assessment of marketing’s role in the Anthropocene. Human activities are damaging the natural systems that sustain life, at a faster rate than previously thought (IPCC, 2018). Within the next 10 years we will have to adapt to more and more intense storms, wild fires, floods, droughts, substantial sea level rise, and the ensuing impacts on food and goods supply, health, and mass global population movement. If, as a species, we can accept the need for change to our way of life, develop and adopt new technologies, and adapt to new realities, we may be able to avoid a worst-case scenario.

Despite the significance of climate change for economic, social and environmental development, the function and structure of markets, as well as for collective and individual wellbeing, the possibly transformative role of marketing in creating pathways to adaptation and mitigation, have yet to be fully acknowledged (Hall, 2018). As Fisk (2006) pointed out, “(c)urrent developments in globalization, consumerism, and innovations ensure that the future of macromarketing is being reshaped even if macromarketers do nothing” (p.214). This special issue calls on macromarketers and all researchers to provide active leadership in finding pathways to this new future. It will provide a forum for contributions supporting positive change.

We invite original, rigorous research submissions focusing on marketing, macro-level phenomena and climate change adaptation, mitigation or vulnerability assessment, and particularly those taking a trans or multi-disciplinary approach. Possible topics might include but are not limited to:

• Exploring marketing’s role in increasing and/or decreasing anthropogenic GHG emissions – history and future of shaping consumptive conditions, practices and cultures;
• Diagnosing market failure and responses – carbon tax, carbon trade, policy interventions;
• Transforming the dominant social paradigm (DSP) – de-marketing, degrowth, social marketing under the lens of climate change;
• Tracing the macrosocial impacts of climate change – inequality, vulnerable communities, gender and post-colonial perspectives, ethics and morality, QOL;
• Utilizing marketing to build social and individual resilience to challenging exogenous change – adaptation, intervention, mindfulness, climate grief, anxiety, health, adaptive and maladaptive coping;
• Adapting marketing and social systems – non-linear systems perspectives, complexity and evolutionary dynamics of change, provisioning societal needs, organizational and institutional dynamics;
• Fostering ‘sustainabilization’ – macrosocial and social marketing supporting societal transformation and flourishing;
• Practicing relinquishment – macro-perspectives on consumer roles in mitigating over-consumption;
• Accomplishing restoration and systems resilience – sustainability-oriented innovation.

Submissions are due no later than July 31, 2020 at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jmk

Please indicate that your paper is intended for this special issue. See manuscript guidelines at http://jmk.sagepub.com/

Please direct any inquiries or expressions of interest to any of the special issue co-editors:

Dr Sabrina Helm
University of Arizona
Email: helm@email.arizona.edu Dr Victoria Little
Monash University Malaysia
Email: vicki.little@monash.edu

Bibliography and further reading

Fisk, George (1974), Marketing and the Ecological Crisis. New York: Harper & Row.

Fisk, George (2006), "Envisioning a Future for Macromarketing," Journal of Macromarketing, 26 (2), 214-218.

Hall, C Michael (2018), "Climate Change and Marketing: Stranded Research or a Sustainable Development?," Journal of Public Affairs, 18 (4), e1893.

Helm, Sabrina V, Amanda Pollitt, Melissa A Barnett, Melissa A Curran, and Zelieann R Craig (2018), "Differentiating Environmental Concern in the Context of Psychological Adaption to Climate Change," Global Environmental Change, 48158-167.

IPCC (2018), Summary for Policy Makers. In Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2018/07/SR15_SPM_version_stand_alone_LR.pdf. (accessed 8 February 2019)

Kemper, Joya A, Paul W Ballantine, and C. Michael Hall (2018), "Global Warming and Sustainability: Understanding the Beliefs of Marketing Faculty," Journal of Public Affairs, 18 (4), e.1664.

Little, Vicki J, and Sabrina V Helm. "Calling All Macromarketers: Vanguards for Sustainability in a +1.5oc World?" In Proceedings of the 44th Macromarketing Conference, edited by Tina Facca-Miess, 1-12. Cleveland, OH: Macromarketing Society, 2019.

O’Brien, Karen L (2016), "Climate Change and Social Transformations: Is It Time for a Quantum Leap?," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7 (5), 618-626.

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