Stakeholder Involvement in Social Marketing

Challenges and Approaches to Engagement

Kathy Knox, Krzysztof Kubacki, Sharyn Rundle-Thiele

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429508844
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing Research
• Index: Business

This book is the first to provide evidence-based experience to showcase how stakeholder management can be applied within social marketing programs, as well providing contemporary discussions of social marketing research. The book aims to bring practitioners and academics together to address the calls made by scholars to address inherent challenges involved in identifying, involving and prioritising different stakeholders in social marketing interventions.

Through sharing real-world experience, the text aims to extend and synthesise current knowledge in the field and contribute to establishing stronger and long-lasting alliances with stakeholders involved in social marketing interventions with an aim of ensuring sustainable behavioural change. This book features a diverse series of case studies from different countries (including but not limited to Australia, Finland, India, Slovenia, the United Kingdom) conducted in various behaviour change contexts (including alcohol consumption, nutrition intake, and breast feeding). Leading international social marketing and social science scholars provide case studies on stakeholder involvement in an intervention or multiple interventions and elucidate relevant lessons to inform theoretical as well as practical implications for multi-stakeholder social marketing interventions.

This volume will be of interest to researchers, advanced students, practitioners and policy makers in social marketing and health policy.

1Introduction

Krzysztof Kubacki, Kathy Knox, and Sharyn Rundle-Thiele

The growing importance of stakeholder involvement in social marketing

For a large part of the twentieth century, since Kotler and Zaltman (1971) coined the term social marketing to describe the use of marketing to achieve social goals, our discipline was focused on promoting social ideas to individuals. In fact, in their social marketing periodisation study, Duane and Domegan (2019) observed that social marketing practice was predominantly driven by a micro-marketing management model, concentrating on downstream approaches involving a small number of stakeholders. While cooperation between stakeholders, often referred to as intermediaries (Duane & Domegan, 2019), was evident, for example using existing distribution channels to deliver social products such as condoms to individuals considered to be in need, initiatives were in most cases ad hoc and short term.

However, a growing awareness of the limitations of downstream and individual-focused social marketing programmes has begun to emerge. Identifying practical solutions to address increasingly complex and multi-faceted social issues requires sophisticated programmes, conducted over the longer term that engage an increasing number of stakeholders at all levels, from individual organisations to broader government, inter-organisational, and cross-national frames. As a result of the growing awareness of the complexity and inter-relatedness of the health, environmental, and social challenges, social marketing literature often includes references to partnerships, recognising the necessity for formation and effective management of stakeholders, given that multiple stakeholders are needed for social transformation to occur benefitting people and the planet (Duane & Domegan, 2019). A shift from micro-level behavioural interventions to social marketing systems has begun (e.g. see Venturini, 2016).

A stakeholder approach has been applied in strategic management for many decades, and a considerable base of evidence exists indicating that effectiveness is increased when multiple stakeholders are involved (Bryson, 2004). When stakeholders are managed effectively in business settings, outcomes tend to be beneficial to companies and to all stakeholders (Lafreniere, Deshpande, Bjornlund, & Hunter, 2013). With social marketing maturing as an academic discipline and practice, in the first two decades of the twenty-first century we have witnessed social marketers engaging in conversations about macro-social marketing (Kennedy, 2020), wicked problems (Brennan, Previte, & Fry, 2016), systems thinking (Domegan et al., 2016), and stakeholder involvement in delivery of behavioural change (Domegan, McHugh, Flaherty, & Duane, 2019). Yet one common denominator runs across all those different approaches to social marketing – social marketing programmes take place in complex settings, often involving multiple stakeholders in social marketing processes (Buyucek, Kubacki, Rundle-Thiele, & Pang, 2016). A holistic approach across the down-, mid-, and upstream continuum has been proposed as one means to increase the likelihood of success of social marketing programmes over the longer term (Hoek & Jones, 2011), which requires the involvement of multiple parties and management of their relationships. Multi-stakeholder partnerships involving a broad array of stakeholders including government bodies, organisations and individuals, are needed to create a supportive context facilitating behaviour change and social transformation efforts (Lefebvre, 2006; McHugh & Domegan, 2017).

Although partnerships are essential for social marketing to deliver effective change, there is only a handful of scholarly resources that discuss stakeholder involvement and share experiences on how multiple parties with different agendas (Domegan, Collins, Stead, McHugh, & Hughes, 2013), conflicting interests (Andreasen, 2006), and expectations (Temple et al., 2008) are managed together to deliver lasting change. The current book is, therefore, the first to integrate the latest theoretical developments and evidence-based experience to guide stakeholder involvement and management in social marketing programmes. This book was born from our desire to put together a scholarly resource, outlining current practices and experiences as well as encouraging discussion in the social marketing field, addressing challenges and experiences arising within the management of different parties’ involvement in social marketing programmes. Given related literature was scattered across numerous academic journals, conference proceedings, and government and industry reports, often inaccessible to those who work in multi-stakeholder social marketing systems; we hope that this book will become a valuable reference for social marketing researchers and practitioners.

The aim of this book is to integrate and extend the current literature concerning stakeholder involvement in the social marketing field. Therefore, it provides a broad array of case studies and theoretical chapters discussing stakeholder involvement in social marketing programme development, delivery, and evaluation, broadening the current discussions on relational thinking in the field and their implications for the practice of social marketing. Experienced international scholars and social marketing practitioners were invited to share their experiences of stakeholder involvement in social marketing. Contributing chapters explore contemporary frameworks, issues, and practices relevant to establishing partnerships; overcoming difficulties and barriers in managing programmes with multiple stakeholders; and criteria and best practice principles for establishing alliances, stakeholder identification and management.

This book is unique in the discussion on stakeholder involvement in social marketing as it brings practitioners and academics together to address the calls made by scholars to take up inherent challenges involved in identifying, involving, and prioritising different stakeholders in social marketing interventions (Hastings, 2003). Through sharing real-world experiences, the text synthesises and extends current knowledge in the field and contributes to establishing stronger and long-lasting alliances with stakeholders involved in social marketing programmes with the aim of further supporting and facilitating sustainable change.

Structure of the book

This book consists of two parts. The first part includes three chapters exploring different issues affecting stakeholder involvement in social marketing. In Chapter 2, Gerard Hastings sets the tone for the book by advocating a new way to think about partnerships. In his view, traditional approaches to partnerships involving stakeholders such as multinational corporations (MNCs) stifle true change. Unconstrained power corrupts MNCs and shapes all stakeholder relationships in their favour; from power comes inertia, or as Hastings argues, the unwillingness of the elites to embrace truly radical change that may undermine the current status quo which benefits them the most. In his call for changing our partnership approach, Hastings reminds us that the dogmatism that limits innovation in partnerships is often used by MNCs to hijack any new ideas and incorporate them into the existing, dominant market discourse through partnerships with, among others, unsuspecting social marketers. Hastings’ words of warning lead to a call for new stories through a partnership with nature rather than MNCs.

Continuing with the topic of power, in Chapter 3, Krzysztof Kubacki, Natalia Szablewska, and Dariusz Siemieniako focus on the issue of ethical tension and conflict between various groups of stakeholders in social marketing systems. Like Hastings, they consider power as an inseparable part of the environment of every social marketing system, yet Kubacki and colleagues approach the issue of power through the lens of power asymmetry and a human rights framework. In their proposed human rights-based approach, including three sets of human rights principles – transparency and accountability, equality and non-discrimination, and participation and inclusion – they show how social marketers can facilitate the process of addressing the conflicting interests of various stakeholders and the power asymmetry in a social marketing system.

Dao Truong, Quynh Pham, and Stephen Saunders discuss in Chapter 4 the level of involvement of various stakeholders in social marketing interventions aiming to encourage individuals to quit smoking. Their systematic literature review of studies published between 2009 and 2018 synthesises key insights from 12 interventions, adding to the growing evidence (see, e.g. Buyucek, Kubacki, Rundle-Thiele, & Pang, 2016) that stakeholder involvement tends to be concentrated in the early stages of social marketing, such as formative research and intervention design, while the number of stakeholders involved in programme delivery tends to decrease as interventions progress, beyond formative research, to implementation and evaluation. Further, the impact of stakeholder involvement on outcomes is rarely reported, adding to the concern that different stakeholders do not play a sufficient role throughout an intervention’s life, limiting their potential contribution to the success of the intervention and any programme longevity.

The second part of this book includes eight chapters describing case studies that report stakeholder involvement in different social marketing programmes, providing brief reflections and overviews of the most relevant lessons learned to inform theoretical as well as practical implications for multi-stakeholder social marketing, which in turn can inform future social marketing programme development and delivery. This part features a diverse series of case studies from different countries (including Australia, Finland, Ireland, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam) conducted in various behaviour change contexts (including alcohol harm minimisation, Active Travel, road safety, health-care systems, and reducing health and well-being inequalities). Case studies explore theoretical issues with practical implications such as stakeholder selection processes; formative research processes; issues emerging during programme delivery, such as conflicts between different stakeholders and how those conflicts were dealt with; approaches taken to solve problems; management techniques; and benefits versus downsides of stakeholder involvement.

In Chapter 5 readers can find a fascinating overview of efforts to minimise the impact of harmful alcohol consumption in Slovenia. Through establishing MOSA – mobilising community for responsibility towards alcohol – Tanja Kamin and Maja Roškar reflect on the programme’s approach to systematically identifying the most relevant stakeholders and synchronising their scattered alcohol harm minimisation efforts. Over the last ten years, the MOSA network has become an example of an important and successful multi-stakeholder government-funded platform facilitating the process of sharing up-to-date data on alcohol research between all involved stakeholders and knowledge about strategic development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions, providing open access and regularly updated databases.

Chapter 6 explores the challenges of adhering to the highest possible research standards, such as randomised control trials, when delivering alcohol education programmes for local communities and schools in Australia and Denmark. Christiane Stock, Timo Dietrich, Lotte Vallentin-Holbech, and Sharyn Rundle-Thiele reflect on their experiences of delivering programmes involving multiple stakeholders in school settings. School administrators are the initial gatekeepers, providing or restricting access to students depending on their perceived need for alcohol education programmes; next, teachers can have a significant impact on the programme implementation process, and they can impact programme fidelity; finally, the engagement of all support staff and students is important to deliver reliable programme evaluations. Stock and colleagues provide detailed recommendations for successful delivery of programmes in school settings.

In Chapter 7, Marie-Louise Fry, Linda Brennan, and Josephine Previte explore the development of Australia’s DrinkWise initiative How to drink properly. Their case study provides an alternative approach to stakeholder analysis, employing Willis et al.’s (2016) collective intelligence framework to identify multisectoral partnerships consisting of six phases of prioritising needs, evidence mapping, using relevant methods and tools, analysing and synthesising data, providing feedback to multisectoral partners, and taking action. The case study provides insights into the highly contested role of industry in the development of alcohol change interventions and presents counterarguments to Hastings’ view of the alcohol industry’s involvement in social change as “dancing with the devil.”

Christine Domegan, Patricia McHugh, Dmitry Brychkov, and Fiona Donovan in Chapter 8 take us on a journey through stakeholder analysis informed by systems thinking, using an example drawn from an Irish Active Travel programme that has been implemented within the urban community of Galway city. Incorporating macromarketing and systems thinking together with the more traditional stakeholder theory approach proposed in the earlier chapter, Domegan and colleagues propose a systemic and holistic multi-stakeholder assessment involving system boundary analysis, classification of stakeholders, identification of their interests, benefits and barriers to participation, and mapping stakeholder dynamics. Their systematic and systemic approach to stakeholder analysis provides a robust foundation for co-designing and co-creating social marketing change interventions that can be implemented with the support of a range of stakeholders identified within complex systems.

In Chapter 9, Tomi Mäki-Opas, Janet Anand, Cilla Veszteg, and Marja Vaarama undertake an analysis of why past and current health and welfare promotion strategies in Finland have failed to reduce health and well-being inequalities. Focusing on the PROMEQ programme (Inclusive Promotion of Health and Well-Being), which sought to establish partnerships between researchers, public services, private enterprises, and third sector organisations over a three-year period, the authors reflect on the effectiveness of interventions targeting four distinct groups: youth not in education, employment, or training (NEETS), long-term unemployed, refugees in early stage of resettlement, and older people with multiple care needs and living alone at home.

In Chapter 10, Kathy Knox and Joy Parkinson introduce the plural rationality approach to integrating stakeholder perspectives in environmental plannin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Ending tyrannic man’s dominion: In search of new partners and new stories
• 3 Ethical tension in working with stakeholders
• 4 Stakeholder involvement in social marketing anti-smoking interventions
• 5 MOSA: Addressing alcohol issues in Slovenia through an upstream multiple stakeholder approach
• 6 Challenges in conducting social marketing-based alcohol prevention trials in schools
• 7 Engaging dissensus: Innovating social change
• 8 Stakeholder analysis in a systems setting: An Active Travel case study in Ireland
• 9 Co-production of social experiments to promote health and well-being among disadvantaged groups together with key stakeholders
• 10 Plural rationality approach to stakeholder engagement
• 11 From care to prevention in the NHS
• 12 Towards universal helmet use: Advocating for change in Vietnam
• Index