The Greening of Marketing: An Analysis of Introductory Textbooks

In this study, the authors examined whether introductory marketing textbooks contain the information that is needed to educate future business leaders about the important role of environmentally sustainable practices. We content-analyzed the 21 current introductory marketing textbooks for coverage of these practices. The results showed limited, sporadic coverage of specific issues, with modest exposure to general environmental awareness. The audit indicated that exposure in pricing issues is more deficient than in other elements of the marketing mix. The 6 market leader texts were only marginally better at coverage than were the others. We concluded that, in the case of the environmentally sustainable practices, business schools have yet to incorporate this vitally important area into their curricula, in part because available textbooks lack sufficient coverage.