MBM432 Sustainable Marketing

• Topics

  Traditionally, the purpose of marketing has been to provide value to customers and to promote sale and consumption. The world is changing, and so are consumer values. In this course you will learn about changes in consumer values related to sustainability and how marketing can adapt to deliver on these new values.

  Main topics are:

  • Core ideas and principles of sustainable marketing
  • Outcomes and effects of sustainable marketing and measurement of outcomes and effects
  • Antecedents of sustainable marketing, meaning how can companies stimulate and implement sustainable marketing

  The first half of the course focuses on sustainable marketing in business-to-consumer markets, while the second half of the course focuses on sustainable marketing in business-to-business markets.

• Learning outcome

  Knowledge

  The candidate

  • demonstrates knowledge and understanding of central themes, theories and methodologies within the area of sustainable marketing
  • demonstrates familiarity with current research relevant for understanding sustainable marketing
  • has an academic basis that prepares for future studies of sustainable marketing
  • has a critical and reflective understanding of the predictive power of theories and models introduced in the course

  Skills

  The candidate

  • can write course papers, participate in group work, and make presentations
  • can work both independently and together with others with practical problems and challenges based on theories, models and methods presented in the course
  • can give advice to companies as to how they can contribute to sustainable marketing

  General competence

  The candidate

  • is able to exchange views and experiences with others with background in sustainable marketing and thereby contribute to the development of good practices
  • understands sustainable marketing and how such marketing differs from traditional marketing
  • can plan and execute a variety of tasks and projects related to sustainable marketing in line with ethical guidelines and requirements

• Teaching

  The course is organized as flipped classroom where students read the course literature and complementary material assigned to each session before they show up at each session. We will offer an opening lecture. Thereafter, class time is used to work on group projects (4-6 students in each group - exceptions can be made). Student groups should preferably be created in the first week of the course. Each student group will apply theories and models from the course curriculum in their project work. The course responsible will in each session have a discussion with each group and supervise all groups while they are working on the course paper. The supervision of the groups will be physical.

  Groups will write two course papers during the course. One paper on sustainable marketing in business-to-consumer markets and one paper on sustainable marketing in business-to-business markets.

  The groups will receive written feedback on both papers, and they will have the opportunity to revise the papers based on the feedback before submitting the final version of the course papers.

• Credit reduction due to overlap

  No overlapping with other courses.

• Compulsory Activity

  A mandatory draft of the B2C course paper should be submitted at 24:00 on the day of the fourth lecture. It will not be possible to join a group or the course after this deadline.

  A mandatory draft of the B2B course paper should be submitted at 24:00 on the day of the ninth lecture.

  Active participation during the group work (4-6 group participants - exceptions can be made) and group-based presentations of the two course papers (approved - not approved). 

  Approvals will be given just after the second presentation (the last lecture of the course).

• Assessment

  Two written group-based course papers:    

  • Course paper on sustainable marketing in business-to-consumer markets: 50 % of final grade      
  • Course paper on sustainable marketing in business-to-business markets: 50 % of final grade

  There can be 4-6 participants in each group. Exceptions can be made.

  The students will receive information about the group-based course papers in the first lecture.

• Grading Scale

  A-F

• Literature

  A complete list of readings (articles) will be available in due time prior to the course.