How Marketers can ‘Do Well While Doing Good’: The Institutional Theory Framework

Abstract

An emerging area of interest in the marketing literature is the study of marketing actions with a social dimension. Underlying this literature is a fundamental reconceptualization of the organization as not only an economic agent, but also an agent of environmental and social change. There are two objectives of this presentation. First, institutional theory is presented in a marketing context to provide a theoretical framework that explains why marketers should integrate pro-social activity with traditional economic-oriented strategies. A theory of the firm provides the conceptual underpinnings that help to guide the development of marketing by providing the theoretical and research traditions within a particular domain of research. Institutional theory is presented as a theory of the firm that provides the potential underpinnings of this emerging domain of marketing thought. The second objective is to present the range of pro-social marketing strategies — or “institutional orientation strategies” — from the institutional theory perspective.