Toward the Institutionalization of Macromarketing: Sustainable Enterprise, Sustainable Marketing, Sustainable Development, and the Sustainable Society

Major events in the institutionalization of macromarketing include (1) the series of macromarketing conferences that began at the University of Colorado in 1976, (2) the founding of the Journal of Macromarketing in 1981, and (3) the establishment of the Macromarketing Society in 2004. This article focuses on the continuing institutionalization of macromarketing by providing a commentary on Mark Peterson's new textbook, Sustainable Enterprise: A Macromarketing Approach. The commentary is structured around seven questions: (1) What is Peterson's "sustainable enterprise"? (2) What is a macromarketing approach? (3) What is the "stability illusion" and how does Peterson dispel it with resource-advantage (R-A) theory? (4) How does R-A theory relate to sustainable marketing? (5) Does the text contribute to institutionalization or reinstitutionalization? (6) Was the financial crisis a "failure of laissez-faire"? (7) Where is the discussion of the "welfare-state, Ponzi illusion," and the sustainable society?.