Abstract
Current changes in the business environment mean that the pursuit of economic development—without accounting for social welfare and environmental constraints—is replaced by the concept of sustainable development. Enterprises, in order to meet market requirements, adopt sustainable marketing as part of their strategy to provide long-term benefits in the social, economic, and environmental dimensions. The article aims to assess the differences in the use of marketing mix tools (5P) according to the concept of sustainable development in countries with different socioeconomic conditions. The empirical study was based on 262 questionnaires conducted among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in two different countries, i.e., 150 companies operating in Poland (as an example of a developed country) and 112 in Sri Lanka (as an example of a developing country). The obtained results show that there are statistically significant differences between the analyzed markets in terms of implementing sustainable marketing tools. The results allow us to conclude that the sustainable marketing mix activities are significantly more important for SEM managers in Sri Lanka than in Poland.
Highlights
The changing business environment, which is related to the increase in competition, the development of new technologies, or growing customer demands and to the increase in pollution and the degradation the natural environment, strongly influences the functioning of enterprises [1]
The main difference lies in their main assumptions, as CRS includes activities related to the way of using the generated funds to meet the needs of contemporary society, whilst sustainable marketing focuses on how funds are earned and how they work in an intergenerational horizon [27]
The conducted study made it possible to verify the implementation of sustainable marketing activities at the operational level, which is closely related to the use of the marketing mix (5P) tools
Summary
The changing business environment, which is related to the increase in competition, the development of new technologies, or growing customer demands and to the increase in pollution and the degradation the natural environment, strongly influences the functioning of enterprises [1]. It is common to define sustainable marketing as a process of creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers, concerning environmental and social aspects [31,32], emphasizing the importance of building long-term relationships with customers, which are beneficial for business and for society and the environment [33]. In this approach, it can be noticed that the most important becomes human and the narrative environment. A review of the literature shows that sustainable marketing is increasingly attracting the interest of theoretical research, but there is still little empirical research on the subject
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