A glimpse from a yearly upcoming symposium (except during pandemic 2020 and 2021) on Marketing Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility. The symposium started 2011 in London with an initiative of Professor Patrick E. Murphy, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, USA, specializes in marketing and business ethics.
The symposium has been hosted by several Universities/ Business schools around Europe and USA. Karlstad Business School hosted the symposium in 2019, which is co-organized by Samuel Petros. Samuel and I have participated in the symposium every year since it started, except Samuel couldn´t able to attend this year’s symposium in Bristol.
This year’s symposium was hosted by Bristol Business School, University of Bristol, UK. The symposium was co-organized by Prof. Pat Murphy and Prof. Caroline Moraes, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Research and Head of Marketing & Consumption Group, University of Bristol Business School.
The University of Bristol is a vibrant, modern university located in the heart of the city of Bristol. With a rich history dating back to 1909, the university is home to over 20,000 students from more than 150 countries and ranked 61st in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2023.
Prof. Pat Murphy and his research college Prof. Gene R. Laczniak Marquette University, Milwaukee, USA visited Karlstad Business School 2016 and were also as key note speakers and at our first Sustainable Day. This was part of the prestart for KBS to apply for membership of PRME 2017. Murphy & Laczniak also contributed with a book chapter on “Marketing ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility for a broader perspective” in Sebhatu, Enquist and Edvardsson, Eds. (2021) Business Transformation for a Sustainable Future.
We can learn from several experiences and focuses of the symposiums from the Business Schools in many countries such as USA, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, New Zeeland and Australia that the mission of the schools includes Societal Contribution. This was also important for Bristol Business School and the University of Bristol, which has a special department for Global Engagement. The first day keynote speech was titled “Marketing Ethics: What does that mean in a global context?” presented by Agnes Nairn, Prof. of Marketing and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Global Engagement, University of Bristol.
This year’s presentations were covered, Ethical issues in Marketing; CSR Perspectives; Consumer Ethics and Ethical Consumption; Behavioral Change and Sustainability Issues; Morality and Autonomy.
Bo Enquist presented a paper from with the titled “Transformation to Regenerative Service Ecosystem – Enabling sustainable business circular practices”, (Enquist and Sebhatu, 2023):
The paper is a conceptual paper with a specific focus on service research, sustainability, and transformation from circularity and symbiosis perspectives to enable sustainable business practices. The aim of the paper is to broaden the service research to meet a service business practice for sustainability, transformation and stakeholder orientation to transform Service Ecosystem to Regenerative Service Ecosystem.
The paper contributes with a further developed conceptual and transdisciplinary theoretical framework starting in S-D logic as an alternative to the make-sell-use-destroy-discard process in G-D logic. A framework meeting a sustainable business practice to tackle global environmental and societal challenges of today as well with a regenerative service ecosystem model to fill the gap in service research.
