Cooperatives and Sustainable Marketing Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

Cooperatives have been labelled as a unique business form that has been “sustained” for more than 2000 years. Cooperatives enable market participants (e.g., producers, consumers, intermediaries, investors) to realize their needs, aspirations, and expectations as well as to have access to goods/services without exploitation. This vision has led cooperatives’ mission and principles over the centuries to converge with several goals as stated by the SDGs of the UN. Nowadays, numerous cooperative brands are included in sustainability indexes such as Global Reporting Initiative or Corporate Knights. That is, cooperative business leaders have substantially dealt with the build-up of a sustainable marketing ecosystem wherein cooperatives can create, communicate, and deliver value by ensuring that not only their economic and financial goals are met, but also both natural and human capital are preserved. Yet, empirical studies on the influence of sustainable marketing strategies on the design of intra-organizational and strategic behavior of cooperatives and the sustainable behavior of cooperative members are scarce and sporadic. Little is known about the sustainable marketing mix of cooperatives and the rapidly changing members’ needs, relationships, and investment preferences for adopting sustainable practices and strategies. Most research focuses on the indicators that drive the sustainable performance of cooperatives. This Special Issue sheds light on key aspects of the sustainable marketing ecosystem of cooperative businesses. It aims to present scholarly contributions that revolve around the empirical study of sustainable make-up of cooperatives’ products/services, pricing, risk management, branding and packing, and sustainability-related topics in the value chains and promotion mix-methods. The insights gained will improve our understanding regarding cooperatives’ behaviors from a sustainable marketing point of view.

Dr. Nikos Kalogeras
Prof. Dr. Joost M. E. Pennings
Guest Editors

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cooperatives
• sustainable marketing ecosystem
• strategies
• member investment preferences