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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Integrating Holistic Marketing into the Stakeholder Management Approach

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The context of globalization and the growing pressures toward sustainable development are nowadays forcing firms to deal with a paradoxical situation: while undeniable engines and major beneficiaries of globalization, businesses are also sources for significant negative externalities that impact on the dynamics of the global system. In these circumstances, the sustainable business should not only represent a major strategic challenge but must also become an effective strategic solution. This is the transformational shift we are advocating for in this chapter, by the instrumentality of a strategic model that integrates holistic marketing into the stakeholder management approach. Based on an interdisciplinary, multilevel, and integrative approach, we have developed a model by following a logical path: identifying the problem (the paradox of business), defining the general solution (the sustainable business), finding the proper implementation tool (the stakeholder management), and recommending the main instrument for operationalizing it (the holistic marketing). This model, if properly internalized and implemented by businesses, can lead to a radical change in the very essence of firms in terms of their business models’ foundations, while (re)positioning them within the global architecture as good corporate citizens. Therefore, a win–win situation for businesses and society will occur, based on the positive economic, social, and environmental impacts this kind of approach will bring.