Background and Literature

Stakeholder Participation in Marketing

Traditional marketing perspectives analyze what the customer, as an independent entity, values as well as the economic benefits derived from an exchange for a company (Bagozzi, 1975). In the 1980s, Freeman broadens the former marketing perspective by introducing a stakeholder marketing perspective, where customers and stakeholders are seen as equally important entities capable of creating and co-creating value, as opposed to customers taking primacy, as illustrated in Table 1. The seminal definition of stakeholders also derives from Freeman’s (1984, p. 46) and management literature, describing stakeholders as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives.” While Freeman’s approach to defining stakeholders has the benefit of being comprehensive, its expansiveness has incurred the criticism of being difficult to implement (Kull et al., 2016) with Miles (2012, 2017), espousing that the concept of the “stakeholder” continues to cause conceptual confusion and contestation. However, Freeman (1984) in his all-encompassing definition wanted marketers to move beyond traditional linear thinking, to contemplate “who counts” and “what really counts” for the fulfillment of both economic and social means, with only those who have no power (who cannot affect), no claim, or relationship (are not affected by it) being excluded (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997). More recent marketing literature sees stakeholders as interrelated. Rather than focus attention on one particular group of stakeholders, the inclusion of diverse networks of stakeholders has the potential to create more value and may result in improved commitment to economic, social, and behavioral means (Buyucek et al., 2016; Domegan, Collins, Stead, McHugh, & Hughes, 2013; Gummesson, 2008). This interrelated multiplicity gives rise to stakeholder marketing, defined by Hult, Mena, Ferrell, and Ferrell (2011, p. 57) as “activities within a system of social institutions and processes for facilitating and maintaining value through exchange relationships with multiple stakeholders.” Stakeholder marketing translates into systems of stakeholders; a dispersed spectrum of individuals and groups with common interests across geographical, political, resource, or social boundaries and across subsystems. It assembles top-down/bottom-up, micro, meso, and macro levels (e.g., representatives of industry, professional associations, consumer and civil associations, leadership positions, and decision-makers) and cross-sectoral approaches (e.g., inland sectorial groups/local, industrial sectors, local authorities and agencies, and nonprofit government organizations [NGOs] including citizen associations and environmental organizations) that bring together different groups of people to enact change (Brennan, Previte, & Fry, 2016; French & Gordon, 2015; Kennedy & Parsons, 2012). This type of stakeholder interrelatedness extends beyond a traditional client focus and acknowledges multiple webs of stakeholder groups simultaneously affecting and affected by marketing environments (Buyucek et al., 2016; Gordon & Gurrieri, 2014; McHugh & Domegan, 2017).