Humanistic Marketing

Marketing practice and scholarship are facing unprecedented challenges. The unsustainability of resource use, the increasing inequity of the market, and the continuous decline in societal trust pose a threat to business and 'marketing as usual'. Humanistic Marketing is a response to the currently growing mega-trend call for rethinking marketing. The book organizes current thinking around the problems of marketing theory and practice as well as some possible solutions and ways forward: both for theory and practice. This volume was initiated by The Humanistic Management Network to contribute knowledge and understanding to the emerging humanistic business and management movement that does not accept perpetual economic expansion as a sustainably viable means of meeting individual and collective needs in society and nature, and instead seeks balance in place of excess. Humanistic Marketing recognises the harm that comes with the unfettered desire for more of more. The authors ask how can marketing's principles and practice be founded in humanistic values such as altruism, empathy, respect, trustworthiness, honesty, integrity, care, compassion, service, intelligence, beauty, justice, virtue? Furthermore, how can marketing help to protect human dignity and promote sustainable human (not consumer) well-being? This book provides a diverse exploration of the position of marketing in the face of challenges for societal transformation, aiming to challenge, provoke, and inspire reflection, deliberation and debate.