Special issue: Beyond Behaviour Change
Social Business, Volume 7, Number 3-4, 2017
Editorial: Beyond behaviour change
by Fiona Spotswood, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 219-228
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431460
What should be the focus of ‘behaviour change’: Individuals or society?
by Tim Chatterton, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 229-240
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431479
This article discusses the contemporary notion of ‘behaviour change’ and how it is causing divisions between those disciplines and practitioners who use approaches that are grounded in individualist worldviews, and those who are led by approaches that emphasise the importance of social realms.
Behaviour change and theories of practice: Contributions, limitations and developments
by Daniel Welch, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 241-261
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431488
This paper considers the role that theories of social practice can play in offering new insights into policymaking and practical interventions for behavioural and social change.
Changing littering practices at Glastonbury Festival
by Fiona Spotswood and Briony Whitaker, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 263-278
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431497
This conceptual paper introduces practice theory as a potential alternative to the traditional ways that littering is conceptualised and tackled, and considers the strengths and pitfalls of the theoretical approach for the expensive, pervasive and environmentally dangerous littering problems faced by Glastonbury Festival.
Commentary: Whose behaviour needs to change? Key factors in an effective response to the burden of non-communicable disease
by Gabriel Scally, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 279-291
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431505
Behaviour change is important in improving population health, but it is predominantly the behaviour and public health approach of governmental and civil society bodies that needs to change. The major health concern for the twenty-first century globally is the steadily growing burden of non-communicable disease. The sanitary revolution of the nineteenth century was based upon a universalist approach led by government and enacted across civil society. Despite the development in the late twentieth century of powerful and successful health promotion approaches to health improvement, there has been undue reliance on approaches based on encouraging individual behavioural change and reflecting the consumerist construct of ‘lifestyle’. But successful change initiatives remain both possible and necessary and there are six identifiable key factors that should be taken into account in the development of population health programmes.
Commentary: The power of “usness”
by Joe Simpson, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 293-312
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431514
An examination of the distinctive homo sapien characteristic of “usness” which marks out our behaviour. This takes in the nature of cooperation, language and thought among humans, as crucial underpinnings of “usness”, a distinctive type of group collective behaviour in which homo sapiens unconsciously as much as consciously adapt to shared ways of doing and thinking, based on shared narratives around shared experiences, embodying values of parochial altruism. The commentary considers some of the theoretical frameworks which accommodate “usness”, and it considers the implications for group thought, group speaking and group action in the field of behaviour change, and the scope for further action emanating from this construct.
The UK transport policy menu: Roads, roads, and a dash of multimodalism
by Adrian L. Davis and Alan Tapp, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 313-332
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431523
We start by noting the recent history of road transport policy in England and that road building tends to be a default policy of the Department for Transport almost irrespective of which political party is in power. We then set out four main challenges to achieving large scale voluntary travel behaviour change in England.
After Paris: Changing corporate behaviour to achieve sustainability
by Bernard Burnes, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 333-357
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431532
The 2015 UN Paris Agreement on Climate Change set challenging sustainable development targets. The aim of this article is to examine how key organisational barriers to implementing these targets can be overcome. In particular, it draws attention to the necessity of changing corporate behaviour so that it supports rather than undermines sustainability and enables organisations to abandon profitability as their paramount goal in favour of a Triple Bottom Line approach of People, Planet and Profit.
Characterising marketing paradigms for sustainable marketing management
by Victoria Hurth and Emma Whittlesea, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 359-390
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431541
Economic theories shape marketing paradigms, and these, in turn, can either aid or inhibit marketing managers’ abilities to contribute to the goal of sustainability – long-term wellbeing for all. The marketing paradigm drawn on is therefore of great importance. Macro sustainable marketing literature does a good job of problematising the influence of neo-classical economic thinking over marketing, but translation and broader exploration of this problem, in a way that can be used to positively transform marketing management at the meso level, is lacking. This paper’s purpose is therefore to characterise three key marketing paradigms which draw from three economic theories of the firm – two of which are likely to hinder sustainable marketing, and an emerging paradigm which is judged as compatible.
Emotion in the ANDS (alternative nicotine delivery systems) market: Practice-theoretical insight into a volatile market
by Marisa de Andrade, Fiona Spotswood, Gerard Hastings, Kathryn Angus, and Nikolina Angelova, (2017) Social Business, 7(3-4), 391-418
https://doi.org/10.1362/204440817X15108539431569
The alternative nicotine delivery systems (ANDS) market is complex, with a range of multi-national and multi-sector stakeholders competing for market share but also clashing ideologically as the evidence about the impact and side-effects of ANDS emerges. This empirical study examines the beliefs, goals and emotions at the heart of the practices performed by actors within the organisations behind the controversial commercial explosion of ANDS.
