Marketing and Sustainability: Business as Usual or Changing Worldviews?

While the conceptualisation of worldview provides a clear background for how individual and social beliefs, attitudes, and values are formed, in practice, institutional theory has provided insight in how stability as well as change occurs in organizations, especially in relation to changing perspectives (of actors). The problem of significant societal change, especially in relation to sustainability, is largely due to our worldview and cognitive rules that constitute the nature of our reality (i.e., frames which involve myths, concepts etc.), which are articulated and constrained by organizations and actors. This is a type of 'philosophic' institution, such as the ideology of consumption and more broadly, the industrial worldview. Consequently, these shared cognitive frames make it very difficult to deviate from them. The concept of worldviews helps to relate or translate the concepts of shared cognitive frames and institutional logics in practical terms in any organization (i.e., business school).

Formal and informal institutions provide stability to social and economic life, the former are rules and standards imposed by governing bodies (e.g., regulation, policy), while the latter shared are meanings and values (i.e., social norms). Informal institutions become ingrained in habitual behavior and social practices, and are thus, hard to change. Moreover, formal institutions are formed to address social, economic, and environmental issues, and both its formation and maintenance is reliant on informal institutions. However, a further distinction for institutions has been offered by others. For example, others see institutions constrained by the regulative, guiding action through coercion; the normative, guiding action through norms (i.e., role relationships, values, behavioral norms); and the cognitive, guiding action through the frames and categories used to know and interpret their world (belief system and worldview).

In contrast to the diffusion metaphor present in much institutional theory, organizational actors may be seen beyond mere carriers or receivers of meanings and practices, instead they are 'active interpreters' who negotiate meaning. In this case, competing worldviews can challenge and thus, destabilize arrangements, practices, and institutions. In other words, in the ensuing struggle with meaning, actors draw on differing "discourses and find new ways to frame and theorize change". When new meanings are created and doubt about the current worldview is incited, then deinstitutionalisation can occur and shift existing norms and practices. Here, institutional entrepreneurship is involved in a discursive struggle.

The meta-theory of institutional logics help define how institutions shape heterogeneity and stability but also change. Institutional logics provide meaning to actors and activities and are "socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices". Once institutional logics are ascribed legitimacy, they become ingrained in practices. There are multiple sources of rationality in society, with each societal sector, such as the market, family, and democracy, representing a different set of expectations for appropriate social relations and behavior. These institutional logics operate at the individual, organizational and societal levels. Consequently, it is important to study how these nested levels interact with each other. Such tensions and struggle between differing logics (i.e., the market and sustainable logic) are supported by studies, such as those of Toubiana and Green. Table 2 displays the variations of the two logics. Both Toubiana and Green empirically reveal the role of a dominant thinking in business schools which prevents the ability to both see the importance of social justice and green issues in business studies and the ability to address these issues when one is interested in its integration.

Table 2. The market and sustainable logic.

Toubiana interviewed various business faculty in Canada about the integration of social justice and the key institutional barrier found in her study was hegemonic institutions and their profit-based ideology. Similarly, Green found that few economic academics considered the need to rethink economic theory to be able to integrate environment-economy and sustainability linkages, an issue that frames and connects with much of the marketing education received in business schools. Moreover, while the business school, especially the American model, has tended to espouse a culture based on neo-liberal capitalist principles, more recently, the very processes of the business school and the university have seen a further shift from an academic logic towards a market logic. Academic logic emphasizes the search for knowledge, research freedom, and intangible rewards in the form of knowledge discovery and peer recognition. In comparison, the market logic commodifies academic research and aims for measurable results which have market value (i.e., high number of publications and citations, rankings of journals and institutions, and external research funding).

Change can occur in institutions through shifts in institutional logics, specifically through institutional entrepreneurs, structural overlap of institutional logics, event sequencing (unique events), and competing institutional logics. Embedded agency supposes, taking a perspective much like Giddens, that while individuals are constrained by institutions, institutions are socially constructed. Institutional contradictions within and among institutions lead some actors to initiate change to address these contradictions and thus create institutional change. Most recent research in institutional (logic) change, examines how competing logics influence organizational fields as well as the actions of institutional entrepreneurs. Research also explores how organizations deal with competing logics, such as through a paradoxical or hybrid approach, which is common amongst social enterprises and the healthcare industry for example. While research has examined the impact of the new managerialism logic in higher education, further studies are needed to explore how academics deal with competing logics in relation to sustainability.

In this case, research in the corporate setting may shed light on how individual actors deal with the competing logics of the market and sustainability in their workplace. Such works often reflect on the identity work and adoption of strategies to align contradictions that actors engage in. The drivers to enact change for sustainability have also been found to differ between sustainability managers. For example, Visser and Crane found four different motives for holding such managerial positions, "Experts" enjoyed giving advice, "Catalysts" like change through influencing policy and leadership, "Facilitators" enjoyed increasing knowledge and empowerment amongst employees, while "Activists" believed in the greater social good and leaving a legacy. However, these studies focus on those already adopting a sustainability position within an organization and more research is needed on how those interested in sustainability, and who do not hold such positions (of power), could implement sustainability in their organization's practices. Wood et al. provides such an insight for sustainability educators, and also identify three types of motivations and experiences; the "Saviour" uses instructive and transmissive pedagogies and has positivist views of sustainability, while the "Nurturer" aims to increase knowledge and discuss differing worldviews, and the "Struggler" goes 'against the tide' of their discipline and colleagues. However, more research is needed on how to enact change in higher education, as faculty are attributed to over half of the implementation of sustainability initiatives.