Management of Shocking Global Crises: The Use of Public Marketing 4.0 within a Social Responsibility and Sustainability Approach

Abstract

The world cannot wait for the fog of geopolitical and geo-economic uncertainty to lift. Opting to ride out the current period in the hope that the global system will “snap back” runs the risk of missing crucial windows to address pressing challenges. On key issues such as the economy, the environment, technology and public health, stakeholders must find ways to act quickly and with purpose within an unsettled global landscape World Economic Forum, 2020 The Research Problem The effective and efficient management of the response to the new shocking global crises, that are taking place in the current disruptive environment, requires the development and implementation of new strategies to modernize public management. The use of traditional public marketing models, enriched by digital marketing and new disruptive technologies, has been considered a very suitable orientation for this, within a framework of social responsibility and sustainability, maximizing social satisfaction by optimizing the functions of social utility, as a basis for prospective planning and crisis management. Chapter overview The high global vulnerability revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic shows the existence of a very threatening and disturbing disruptive environment, which will foreseeably continue to generate shocking global crises, with this or other triggers. Given that the response of many governments to the current crisis has been late, improvised, ineffective and insufficient, it seems that it would be advisable to accelerate the modernization of public management, within the framework of the ongoing transformation of the public sector. For this, the implementation of public marketing models within a social responsibility and sustainability approach would allow a better, more dynamic, more exhaustive, and more real knowledge of social needs; the planning and management of a public service offer totally focused on the authentic needs of citizens, as well as a more effective, efficient, and transparent management of public resources, in a permanent fight against waste and corruption. This will allow the development of more proactive, effective and efficient crisis response plans, with minimal risks. The research has been developed from the application of new public-private strategies, whose main frame of reference is the application of public marketing 4.0, and the use of tools such as economic intelligence, strategic anticipation, prospective planning, cost-benefit analysis as well as the digital technologies of data science. As tools related to public marketing, social welfare functions are studied for the optimization of social utility, which integrates social, economic and ecological indicators, around the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda, within a socially responsible marketing approach.