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In this introduction to the special section on sustainability, the authors propose two primary factors that can help characterize past research in marketing on sustainability. The first of these factors, the research objective, has two dimensions: mitigate versus create and short-term versus long-term focus. To mitigate (vs. create) implies that the objective of the research is to understand factors whose reduction (enhancement) would have a positive impact on sustainability. Short- versus long-term focus describes the fact that the research objective can be to impact an immediate behavior related to sustainability or can be focused on longer-term drivers or consequences of such behaviors. The second factor, research context, can have multiple dimensions, although much of the past and current research on sustainability has been conducted in four contexts: environmental, nonenvironmental, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business. The authors first review past literature in light of this framework and then discuss the articles in the special section. They close with a discussion of where researchers interested in studying the intersection of sustainability, marketing, and public policy can go from here.

We explore how advertising managers of financial services organizations have responded to the repercussions of the Great Recession in their advertising strategies. To this end, we compare print ads for financial services that appeared in six magazines at two periods in time: 2005, prior to the Great Recession and 2010, after the end of the Great Recession. We content analyzed 755 prints ads and found major differences in the advertising strategies from prerecession to postrecession, particularly in the type of appeals. We further examined these strategic shifts by audience focus (business-to-business and business-to-consumer) and gender focus (male, female, or both).

Technological advances have enabled consumers to take greater control over how and when they view television programming, with many consumers choosing to time-shift consumption. Yet, preferences for live viewing vs. time-shifting viewing vary across program types, with news, special event, and sports programming showing higher real-time viewing than other program types. While indeterminacy is one factor that has been shown to predict consumer preferences for real-time broadcasts, drawing on literature related to the uncertainty of outcome and suspense, we argue that there is more to this preference than indeterminacy alone. More specifically, we propose that entertainment experiences contain two types of suspense (outcome and process suspense) and we show how process suspense impacts consumer preferences for time-shifting in TV entertainment consumption. Our research enriches our understanding of the nature of suspense and the relationship between outcome knowledge and the ability to experience suspense while also providing practical insights into why consumers choose to time-shift some programs, but not others.

Nonprofits that depend on charitable giving operate in a competitive context and cannot simply expect to receive donations because they represent a “good” or “deserving” cause. To increase the chances of receiving donations, they have to communicate the positive impact of the donor's actions (perceived efficacy) and ensure that the appeals are seen as motivating (persuasiveness). We sampled donors from the database of a local charity and found that perceived efficacy for the charity was significantly influential. We also found that persuasiveness of an appeal fully mediated their charitable giving behavior. Thus, to receive a fair share, or any share, of an individual's donations, even the willing need to be persuaded.

This study adopts a consumer perspective and explores investors' noneconomic goals. This approach shifts the focus from the investment vehicle and its performance to the investor and her/his investing goals. We explore the influence of religiosity, environmental attitude, materialism, collectivism, risk tolerance, and social investing efficacy on investors' noneconomic goals. We find that social investing efficacy mediates the relationships between the aforementioned variables and noneconomic goals. Implications for managerial practice are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A consumer lens is used to examine investing behavior in this study. The study focuses on the importance given by investors to their economic and social investing goals (SIG). This approach redirects managerial attention from the investment to the investor and investing goals. The study finds that differences in environmental attitude, social investing efficacy, materialism, religiosity and protected values can explain disparities in investing goals. The findings suggest a segmentation approach based on differences in antecedent effects and economic and SIG.

This article presents a study examining the effect on direct mail response rates of two different types of enclosures or premiums included in a fund raising packet. Also, the effect of audience involvement combined with the effect of varying enclosure types was examined. A field experiment was conducted on individuals from two mailing lists of recent charitable donors. Managerial implications are discussed.

More and more communities have instituted recycling programs and consumer recycling is no longer a new fad; it is here to stay. However, consumer commitment to recycling and participation rates have leveled off. Whereas lack of access to recycling facilities was cited as a key inhibitor to participation in the early days of recycling, that is generally not the case anymore. Thus there is an imperative to revisit consumer recycling by focusing on behavioral issues that reflect today's context. In this study we review the past literature and propose a comprehensive model of consumer recycling. We identify two intervention mechanisms – incentives or information – that are believed to increase recycling participation. We, then, describe a longitudinal field experiment to evaluate the relative merits of these intervention programs. We conclude that either intervention program is effective, although informational programs appear to have more long-term effects than incentive programs. We also create a new measure of social class, one that includes other influential actors' characteristics, and show its relationship to recycling attitudes and behaviors. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The current paradigm of business pedagogy has come under additional scrutiny for its inability to link socially responsible behavior by firms to their performance in ways that students find meaning...

How does a business firm manage its relationship with the natural environment? What are the factors that influence the choice of such strategies? Does industry type matter? The authors introduce and operationalize the concept of corporate environmentalism in an effort to answer these questions. Using stakeholder theory, the authors identify four important antecedents to corporate environmentalism, namely, public concern, regulatory forces, competitive advantage, and top management commitment. The authors then use a political–economic framework to develop testable hypotheses. To test the hypotheses, the authors perform multigroup path analysis on data gathered from more than 240 firms. They find that corporate environmentalism is related to all hypothesized antecedents and that industry type moderates several of those relationships. In the high environmental impact sector, public concern has the greatest impact on corporate environmentalism, followed by regulatory forces. In the moderate environmental impact sector, competitive advantage has the greatest impact on corporate environmentalism, followed by regulatory forces. There are strong direct and mediating influences from top management commitment, which is the antecedent with the greatest impact on both industry groups. The influences of regulatory forces, public concern, and competitive advantage are all significantly mediated by top management commitment and moderated by industry type. The empirical findings and the ensuing discussion will be of interest to managers and public policy officials.

SUMMARY Alliances have been referred to by many other terms such as symbiotic marketing, horizontal integration, collaboration, or strategic partnerships. There is a lot of literature on alliances, although most of that has generally focused upon the nature of alliances, e.g., formality, symmetry, and number. Much less has been written about the characteristics of the alliance partners, e.g., strategic goals, administrative structures, range of activities, etc. There are also very few empirical studies in this area. Based on the limited empirical evidence that is available, the author will integrate partnership and partner characteristics to develop a comprehensive theory of alliances. Such an integration will considerably enhance development of alliance theory as well as help potential partners better understand themselves and their partnerships.

Recycling is a well-researched topic in various disciplines such as waste management, environment, psychology, consumer behavior and marketing. Past studies seem to suggest that demographic characteristics, gender in particular, influence recycling behaviors. Others cite the role of work environment in promoting favorable attitudes toward recycling and encouraging recycling behaviors. School and college students represent a critical population that can be influenced to adopt recycling behaviors. In this study we report a field experiment conducted in a large university. We found the origin of individual recycling behavior and the amount of accumulated experience to significantly impact current attitudes and behaviors. We cautiously conclude that early intervention is likely to have a lasting impact on future attitudes and behaviors.

Alliances are being used by environmental organizations to achieve their mission of improving the natural environment. Many of these alliances have been formed within the nonprofit sector, whereas others have been formed across economic sectors with government agencies and businesses as partners. The authors discuss two studies that examine differences among alliances formed by environmental organizations with (1) government agencies, (2) for-profit businesses, and (3) other environmental organizations. In Study 1, which is based on a national survey of environmental organizations, they examine the relative effectiveness, formality, influence, and political position associated with different types of alliances. In Study 2, they further explore these relationships through in-depth telephone interviews of a subsample of respondents drawn from Study I. Both studies contribute to the understanding of nonprofit alliance relationships and their role in influencing environmental policy and market behavior.

Environmental appeals are becoming increasingly common in advertising, but all green ads are not created equal. The authors report the results of a content analysis designed to uncover the underlying structure of green advertising. A convenience sample of 95 green TV ads and 173 green print ads were content-analyzed. Multidimensional analysis indicates that the structure of green advertising can be captured in three dimensions: sponsor type (for-profit or nonprofit), ad focus (whether the ad focuses on the advertiser or the consumer), and depth of ad (shallow, moderate, or deep depending on the extent of environmental information mentioned). A majority of advertisers in the sample attempted to project a green corporate image rather than focusing on the environmental benefits of their product or service.

Past studies have shown that, while refuting rumors, certain strategies, such as the introduction of a stimulus that deflects allegation, are superior to mere refutation. In this study, the originator of a rumor and the tone of a refutational message are proposed as factors that influence the success of rumor quelling strategies. It is shown that no refutation is superior when the originator is a negative stakeholder, whereas other types of refutation are more effective when the stakeholders are neutral or positive. Further, a conciliatory tone is uniformly superior to an inflammatory tone.

We discuss the reasons why this call for papers was issued and describe the process of selecting the three articles presented in this special section. We argue that maximizing stakeholder welfare and not just consumption maybe a new goal for marketing that will be consistent with emerging societal trends. Three articles on volunteerism, price assurances, and direct-to-consumer advertising result from our call and are presented in this section. This introduction is an overview of the three articles.

This research examines the extent to which individuals self-reference advertising portrayals and the consequences of doing so. A composite self-referencing measure is developed relative to how self-referencing has been defined and induced in past research. Individuals who exhibited high levels of self-referencing of stimulus advertisements elicited more positive attitudes and cognitive responses than those who exhibited low levels of self-referencing. Self-referencing was also found to mediate the effect of various sex-role portrayals on respondents' attitudes.