Submissions will be accepted from November 15, 2023 to February 1, 2024.
In many areas of marketing research, a growing movement toward research that seeks to improve the quality of human existence has occurred (e.g., Transformative Consumer Research). This movement mirrors AACSB’s incorporation of societal impact into the 2020 accreditation standards, intended to ensure that schools are focused on preparing students to leave the planet in a better place. As a consequence, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (found at https://sdgs.un.org/goals) are a key component of many business schools’ strategic plans to demonstrate societal impact.
While the SDG goals are noble and significant, business faculty grapple with demonstrating monumental, societal impact at the classroom or student level. “Societal impact” is often associated with global, broad impact beyond the university’s local community. Such a definition can be overwhelming for faculty who are simultaneously attempting to create rich, interactive experiences that bring curriculum to life while connecting students to the communities in which they live and work.
The goal of this special issue is to provide a resource for marketing educators seeking ideas to connect marketing concepts with societal impact within the local community and beyond. Marketing faculty often use course-based projects, guest panels, and in-class activities to bring curriculum to life for students. We seek research that demonstrates evidence-based efforts that can be replicated and extended elsewhere, as well as theory-based innovative practices with preliminary results, all with the goal of multiplying the impact of business schools everywhere.
Topics to be considered for this issue may include, but are not limited to:
- Course-based projects and extra-curricular initiatives
- Facilitating projects with local organizations whose initiatives support one or more SDGs (e.g. zero hunger, good health and wellbeing).
- Assessing student-led initiatives to support local/public entities (e.g. affordable and clean energy, clean water and sanitation).
- Investigating extracurricular club (e.g. Enactus, AMA) project impacts related to one or more SDG.
- Evaluating projects that connect the university with the local community (e.g. reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities)
- School/University level initiatives
- Examining methodologies for measuring schools’ sustainable impact
- Investigating the desire for societal impact, and in particular UN Sustainable Development Goals, in university or college-level strategic planning and performance
- Exploring challenges of institutionalizing and sustaining programs of impact in schools of business
- Partnership initiatives
- Evaluating collaborative partnerships between institutions to address societal impact initiatives
- Demonstrating the value of centers focused on small business development, innovation, etc. as it relates to improving the university’s community impact
- Stakeholder perceptions of university, college, or departmental efforts to impact SDG
- Theoretical works
- Developing theory that supports or encourages sustainable development
- Identifying the impact of academic movements such as Transformative Consumer Research
- Methodological contributions for measuring societal impact
