Journal of Business Research 67 (2014) 1–4

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Journal of Business Research

Religion, humanism, marketing, and the consumption of socially responsible

products, services, and ideas: Introduction to a special topic section
Brian T. Engelland ⁎
School of Business and Economics, The Catholic University of America, 620 Michigan Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20064, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This introduction to the special issue provides an overview and brief summary of the eight articles that follow
Received 1 August 2012 and take up the issue's theme. Despite the fact that religion and religious world views exert considerable in-
Received in revised form 1 March 2013 fluence on consumer attitudes and behavior, mainstream business journals have presented little research
Accepted 1 March 2013
that explores the relationship between religion and marketing. Articles featured in this special issue examine
Available online 12 April 2013
three themes of interest: (1) the influence of strongly held religious or non-religious world views on the mar-
Keywords:
keting of socially responsible behaviors; (2) how religious world views influence the conduct of marketing;
Religion and (3) what marketing scholars can learn from the marketing practices of various religious organizations.
Marketing The authors extend a note of appreciation to the reviewers of the many papers submitted to the issue and
World view to the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Business Research, Arch Woodside.
Social responsibility © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The idea for this special issue began with a between-session dis-
cussion among marketing faculty at the 2010 Society for Marketing
Advances meeting in Atlanta. Conferees had just heard an executive
from the Coca Cola Company speak at length about recycling initia-
tives her firm was undertaking. She had proclaimed that sustainabil-
ity was the new mantra of consumers worldwide, and that effective
sustainability programs were the new measure of a firm's true corpo-
rate social responsibility. These remarks amplified those of an earlier
speaker, a green marketing pioneer, who spoke about some of the
barriers to overcoming consumer lethargy and corporate reluctance
to achieve real green success. One important barrier was said to be
religiosity, because high religiosity consumers tended to believe that
the earth was created to be used, not conserved.
Stimulated by these two presentations, together with individual
concerns for human flourishing, conferees began a between session dis-
cussion. The discussion led to a tentative conclusion that most people
seem to want the world to become a better place, but not all people
agree on what that better place should look like. Alternate “worldviews”
incorporating differing goals and strategies sometimes lead to a polari-
zation in perspectives and an unwillingness to negotiate or find a mid-
dle ground. Many resign themselves to the idea that doing nothing is
⁎ Tel.: +1 202 319 6729; fax: +1 202 319 4426.
E-mail address: engellab@cua.edu.
better than working with a group that espouses a differing worldview.
As a result, opportunities to serve the common good are lost.
A majority of the world's population belongs to one of the major
world religions (e.g., Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and
Judaism) and many others embrace Confucianism and secular humanism,
non-religious systems of thought centering on human values, capacities,
and self-worth. These religious and non-religious worldviews differ in
substantive ways and, accordingly, adherents of one system often have
difficulty understanding adherents of others. This communication prob-
lem is especially apparent when various green, healthful, safe, or other
socially-responsible products, services, and ideas are marketed. Yet,
some agreement among groups with distinctly different views is neces-
sary if society is to achieve useful objectives.
Clearly, alternative worldviews have a profound impact on societal
attitudes and opinions. Such worldviews provide an orientating frame-
work to help consumers understand the big issues of life, such as what
kind of world should society be trying to create? In turn, neighbor-
hoods, communities, organizations, and political bodies are strongly
influenced by the beliefs of the individuals who comprise their group-
ing. Marketing, on the other hand, is not so much oriented toward the
big issues of life, but rather the tactical issues involved in structuring
an idea, product, or service and communicating that idea, product or
service effectively enough so that a defined target group of people
becomes enthused. Competing religious and non-religious worldviews
attract new acolytes and are spread through effective marketing; the
practice of marketing lacks meaning without an organizing worldview
to provide overall direction. Thus, marketing and religion have an
important relationship. Both depend upon one other.

0148-2963/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.03.005
2 B.T. Engelland / Journal of Business Research 67 (2014) 1–4
2. Theory
Religion can be defined as a system of belief that recognizes a divine
power (or powers) as the creator and ruler of the universe. Humanism,
on the other hand, is a nontheistic, rationalist system that holds that
man is capable of self-fulfillment and ethical conduct without recourse
to supernaturalism (Neufeldt & Guralnik, 1988). Religion and human-
ism are considered comprehensive human existence philosophies or
“world views,” and are referred to as such throughout this special issue.
Marketing strategy literature treats the presence of worldviews as
socio-cultural environmental factors that help shape consumer tastes
and preferences. Through church attendance, devotional practice, study
or common experience, people absorb, almost unconsciously, a world-
view that informs their beliefs and shapes their values. This worldview
consists of core beliefs such as the worth of a college education or the
importance of giving to charity; plus secondary beliefs such as which
university is better or which charitable cause is doing the most good.
Core and secondary beliefs affect product and brand preferences, and
are linked through cognitive consistency theory (Chen & Risen, 2010;
Cummings & Venkatesan, 1976; Festinger, 1957). Thus, marketers have
some chance of changing secondary beliefs through effective marketing
campaigns, but little chance of changing core beliefs (Kotler & Keller,
2009).
Verstehen sociology posits that human action is directed by meaning
which can only be discerned by understanding the worldview of the
social actor concerned (Herva, 1988). Over the course of history religion
is often an important component of one's worldview. Accordingly, reli-
gious beliefs can not only direct social action (Alford & Naughton, 2001),
but can influence social change (Jaspers, Lubbers, & Dirk De Graaf, 2007;
Ozaki & Dodgson, 2010). For example, Weber attributes the early
growth of capitalism in Northern Europe to allied Calvinistic Protestant
beliefs.
Religious influence can be successful in promoting change in two
directions: radical change in which a society is pushed to a new direction;
and conservative change, in which a society is encouraged to return to the
social arrangements of the past (Njoh, 2012). A good example of the for-
mer is Martin Luther King with his peaceful Christian protests that
encouraged society to extend greater civil rights to African Americans.
An example of the latter is the influence of the Ayatolla Khomeini,
who advocated regressive policies that restricted the empowerment
of women.
Religion can influence both consumer and managerial action.
Research has shown that national religious beliefs influence corporate
decision-making, the development of corporate culture and the valuation
of businesses (Anderson, Drakopoulou-Dodd, & Scott, 2000). Religion is
characterized as an antecedent to culture, and members of different reli-
gions have been found to exhibit differing levels of individualism, power
distance, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity (Hofstede, 1980). All of
these factors in turn influence how consumers respond to marketing
messages. Surprisingly, however, antecedents such as religion have
attracted little systematic attention in international marketing research
(Steenkamp, 2001). Further cultural research has been consistently iden-
tified as a need in international marketing research (Melawar, Meadows,
Zheng, & Rikards, 2004; Yaprak, 2008; Zelizer, 2011).
3. The contributions of this special issue
The contributions of this special issue illustrate how the marketing
of socially responsible products and ideas is influenced by various reli-
gious and non-religious world views. Three streams of research are rep-
resented. The first three articles examine the influence of strongly held
world views on socially responsible behaviors such as supporting char-
itable causes or undertaking pro-environmental behaviors. Two more
articles delve deeper into how religious world views may influence
other aspects of the conduct of marketing, both with respect to manage-
ment objectives and to consumer decision-making. The third group of
articles addresses what marketing can learn from the marketing prac-
tices of religious groups.
3.1. Socially-responsible behaviors
William Martin and Connie Bateman begin this section with an article
that examines the antecedent role of intrapersonal religious commit-
ment on ecocentric attitudes and environmental consumer behaviors
(Martin & Bateman, 2014–this issue). Their findings negate the notion
of a strictly negative relationship between belief in the Judeo-Christian
faith and disregard for the environment. Religiously committed con-
sumers appear to be no less receptive to pro-environmental messages
or less likely to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors than
non-religious consumers. Indeed, consumer education-based environ-
mental appeals for low-commitment actions like buying environmental-
ly friendly products had equal influence on both types of consumers.
However, religious-based appeals clearly achieved greater success for
high commitment actions such as requests for donations when applied
to religiously-committed consumers.
Maria Kalamas, Mark Cleveland, and Michel Laroche suggest that in-
dividual beliefs about one type of world view, environmental locus of
control, can have a profound impact on pro-environmental behavior
(Kalamas, Cleveland & Laroche, 2014–this issue). These researchers de-
velop a model and conduct research that examines how external attribu-
tions of control affect consumer pro-environmental behaviors.
Specifically, they find that consumers ascribing environmental responsi-
bility to powerful others tend to engage in pro-environmental behaviors,
such as recycling, conservation, using public transportation, and donat-
ing to pro-environmental causes. These consumers look to large corpora-
tions to do their fair share in cleaning up the environment and then
develop brand allegiance according to which firms do. However, those
attributing environmental change to chance or fate typically avoid par-
ticipating in pro-environmental behaviors. Consequently, the authors
conclude that education regarding the causes of environmental damage
should be a component of programs intended to convert consumers to
participate in pro-environmental behaviors.
Christopher Hopkins, Kevin Shanahan, and Mary Anne Raymond note
that non-profit organizations face increasing competition from other
non-profits in raising donations, and consequently, the effectiveness of
the advertising they employ is a strategic concern (Hopkins, Shanahan
& Raymond, 2014–this issue). These authors explore the role of religiosity
on intent to donate to the nonprofit sponsor of pro-social ads and find
that religiosity does acts as a moderator in the relationship between liking
of the ad, perceived corporate social responsibility of the nonprofit and in-
tent to donate to the nonprofit. In analyzing data from a panel of 306 con-
sumers, these authors find that consumers scoring higher on the
religiosity scale are more likely to become involved in pro-social activities
that affected positive societal change through their churches and other
faith-based activities. In addition, these authors find that high religiosity
consumers respond more favorably to non-profit advertising. Conse-
quently, the level of religiosity in a nonprofit's public support base is an
important factor impacting the appeal and effectiveness of advertising.
3.2. Management objectives and consumer decision-making
The second research stream includes two articles that examine the
potential influence of major religious world views on the conduct of
marketing. Both works advocate changes in marketing practice to
increase social justice.
In the first contribution, Ronald Hill and Michael Capella provide an
overview of the body of knowledge known as Catholic Social Teaching
(CST) which for a number of years has been proposed as an ethical
means to organize all social interaction, including business (Hill &
Capella, 2014–this issue). CST relies on four cornerstone principles –
human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity, and the common good – and
from these four, another principle, called “preferential option for the
 B.T. Engelland / Journal of Business Research 67 (2014) 1–4
poor,” can be derived. This preferential option principle requires that
marketers engage in policies and programs that promote a just distribu-
tion of wealth so that all individuals – even the poorest of the poor –
have access to food, shelter, clothing, education, medical care, and gain-
ful employment. The authors then take a macro view in examining
progress over the past 25 years in reducing poverty and achieving a
more just wealth distribution. Their findings indicate that American
progress is lower than the average of industrialized nations and that hu-
manitarian aid has not kept pace. These researchers advocate changes
in marketing education as one means of achieving a more just and equi-
table result.
In the second contribution of this section, Noha El-Bassiouny
observes that many Western marketers have not been successful in
marketing to the growing Islamic consumer segment, a market oppor-
tunity which numbers over one billion consumers around the world
(El-Bassiouny, 2014–this issue). The reasons for this lack of success pro-
ceed from two underlying themes. First, marketers taking a
less-than-full effort toward reaching this segment with effective prod-
ucts, services, marketing approaches because of a general societal prej-
udice fueled by misunderstandings. Second, Muslims themselves tend
to restrict their participation to the margins of Western society so as
to preserve their religious identity and protect themselves and their
families from harm. Muslims demonstrate a high degree of commit-
ment to the practice of their faith and exert social peer pressure to
keep friends and relatives true to Islamic teachings in many aspects of
consumption. El-Bassiouny (2014–this issue) proposes a value integra-
tion model which relates Islamic religiosity to specific marketing impli-
cations. As a result, this work proposes a research agenda that should
serve to establish an enlightened dialogue and foster further
cross-cultural understandings with the Muslim consumer segment.
3.3. Marketing of religious groups
The third research stream offered in this special issue deals with
how various religious organizations utilize marketing ideas to extend
their influence and gain new members. As this research demonstrates,
marketing approaches and tools developed to attract new members
for religious-based organizations have broad applicability to the mar-
keting of other types of affinity groups.
In the first article of this section, Andrew Abela proposes a new
marketing technique called “appealing to the imagination” as a type
of marketing communication designed to engage the imagination of
the target audience (Abela, 2014–this issue). Appealing to the imagi-
nation is based upon Ryn's theory and draws on the persuasive power
of visualization and storytelling. Both visualization and storytelling
are aesthetic, poetic, and truthful; and at the same time both are par-
ticularly applicable to communicating religious claims with authen-
ticity and tolerance. The transcendent, non-physical nature of most
religious claims means that the marketing of religion relies heavily on
the consumer's imagination. Abela illustrates how many elements of
appealing to the imagination have been applied by the Focolare move-
ment, a rapidly growing religious movement that uses appeals to the
imagination extensively and successfully.
In the second article, Sriya Iyer, Chander Velu, and Abdul Mumit
study the competitive use of personal and non-personal communica-
tions channels by five major religious organizations in India — Hindu,
Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and Jain (Iyer, Velu & Mummit, 2014–this
issue). The contribution presents a fascinating study of the interplay
of competitive strategy. Their findings suggest that if a competitor in-
creases the use of non-personal communication channels, then this in-
crease evokes a retaliatory reaction in which the incumbent increases
personal communication channel use. Second, an incumbent who is
more responsive to a competitor increasing their non-religious service
provision will respond by increasing their use of non-personal communi-
cation channels and by decreasing their use of personal channels. Ac-
cordingly, the distinction between core and peripheral propositions of
3
an organization and the communications medium used to convey mes-
sages has implications for how competitors react.
In the last contribution, Karen Granger, Vinh Nhat Lu, Jodie Conduit,
Roberta Veale, and Cullen Habel note that spiritually based communi-
ties (SBCs) provide a range of economic and social benefits to society,
but declining memberships have prompted a need for greater under-
standing and insight into the factors that drive participation in these
communities (Granger, Lu, Conduit, Veale & Habel, 2014–this issue).
In this study, the authors develop a conceptual model depicting religios-
ity as the core driver on the donation of time, money, and attendance at
religious services. The model further specifies that the impact of a belief
in a ‘higher being’ on participation in SBCs is moderated by several fac-
tors. These factors include age, income, time available for socialization,
desire to make a social contribution, and the need for social interaction.
A preliminary investigation of consumers in Australia provides strong
support for the model, serving as a starting point for a number of future
studies on the behaviors of SBC members.
4. A note of appreciation to our editor and reviewers
Creating a special issue requires a great deal of work from many
scholars. First, I'd like to express appreciation for Arch Woodside,
editor-in-chief, for his outstanding support and guidance. In addition, I
very much appreciate the contributions in time, expertise, and insights
by the following colleagues completing double-blind reviews of the
submissions of the call for papers for this special issue: Andrew Abela,
The Catholic University of America; Sophia Aguirre, The Catholic Univer-
sity of America; Tom Baker, Clemson University; Don Barnes, State Uni-
versity of New York — Fredonia; Sharon Beatty, University of Alabama;
Michelle Beauchamp, Middle Tennessee State University; John Branch,
University of Michigan; Mike Breazeale, Indiana University Southeast;
Cynthia Cano, University of South Florida; Michael Capella, Villanova
University; Joel Collier, Mississippi State University; Jodie Conduit, The
University of Adelaide (Australia); Charlene Davis, Trinity University;
Mike Dorsch, Clemson University; Kranti Dugar, University of Denver;
Kim Fam, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand); Linda
Ferrell, University of New Mexico; Zach Finney, University of South
Alabama; John Fraedrich, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale;
Atilla Freska, The Catholic University of America; John Grant, Ohio
Dominican University; Joe Hair, Kennesaw State University; Sue
Halliday, University of Hertfordshire (United Kingdom); Dave Hardesty,
University of Kentucky; Nadine Hennig, Leibniz University of Hannover
(Germany); Chris Hopkins, Clemson University; Rhea Ingram, Auburn
University Montgomery; Karen James, Louisiana State University —
Shreveport; Shirley Jenner, Manchester Metropolitan University (United
Kingdom); Maria Kalamas, Kennesaw State University; Tom Klein, Uni-
versity of Toledo; Michelle Kunz, Morehead State University; Stan
Madden, Baylor University; FK Marsh, Mount St. Mary's University;
William Martin, University of North Dakota; John Mittelsteadt, Universi-
ty of Wyoming; Rob Moore, Mississippi State University; Sarath Nonis,
Arkansas State University; Steffen Schmidt, Leibniz University of
Hannover (Germany); Kevin Shanahan, Mississippi State University;
Debra Spake, University of South Alabama; Tracy Suter, Oklahoma
State University; Isabelle Szmigin, University of Birmingham (United
Kingdom); Ron Taylor, Mississippi State University; Debbie Thorne,
Texas State University; Chander Velu, University of Cambridge (United
Kingdom); Cynthia Webster, Mississippi State University; Alvin Williams,
University of South Alabama; Charlie Wood, University of Tulsa; Letty
Workman, Utah Valley University; Thomas Wüstefeld, Leibniz University
of Hannover (Germany); Jack Yoest, The Catholic University of America;
and Lin Zhang, Truman State University.
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