The Diamond Model of Authentic Green Marketing: Evidence from the Sustainable Architecture Industry

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12136
• Author: Alan J. Krause,Ian D. Parkman
• Date: 01 March 2018
• Published date: 01 March 2018

The Diamond Model of

Authentic Green Marketing:

Evidence from the Sustainable

Architecture Industry

IAN D. PARKMAN AND ALAN J. KRAUSE

ABSTRACT

While “green marketing” has emerged as powerful competi-

tive force, many markets lack clear institutional standards

or knowledgeable customers to allow firms committed to

sustainable practices to differentiate themselves from

opportunistic, green-washing competitors. Within these

contexts we propose a firm-level lens based on authentic

firm reputation as an important, yet poorly understood,

competitive force. Drawing on interview data from the

architectural design services context we identify the ele-

ments that firms use to communicate their own authentic-

ity, as well as discourage green-washing behavior of peers,

and present these elements as the “Diamond” model of

authentic green marketing, consisting of: (1) The abili ty to

appear above commercial considerations; (2) The ability to

frame production methods as craft; (3) The use of corporate

visual identity; and (4) An organization’s social network of

Ian D. Parkman is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Franz Center for Leadership, Entrepre-

neurship and Innovation, Pamplin School of Business, University of Portland, Portland, OR,

USA. E-mail: parkman@up.edu. Alan J. Krause is Assistant Professor of Management at the

School of Business and Leadership, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, USA. E-mail: ajk-

rause@pugetsound.edu.

V

C2018 W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by

Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington

Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

Business and Society Review 123:1 83–118

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stakeholders. We conclude by discussing the generalizabil-

ity and implications of our framework for practitioners as

well as opportunities for future research.

INTRODUCTION

How do authentic firms differentiate their green marketing

activities from green-washing competitors in marketplaces

that lack clear institutional standards (e.g., the USDA

Organic labeling process)? Based on interviews of managers from

the architectural design services industry, this article proposes the

“Diamond” model of authentic green marketing, consisting of: (1)

The ability of firms to appear above commercial considerations; (2)

The ability to frame production methods as craft; (3) The use of cor-

porate visual identity (CVI); and (4) An organization’s social net-

work. This “Diamond” model provides organizations with a toolkit

to develop authentic reputations for green marketing, thereby dif-

ferentiating themselves from the opportunistic green-washing

actions of rivals. In addition, our article extends previous work of

Spence et al. (2001), Sorell and Hendry (1994), and Fassin (2009),

who expand stakeholder theory to include firms’ close competitors.

Further, this article contributes to academic discussion of “green

marketing”—i.e., marketing products or services as environmen-

tally friendly, energy efficient, or organic despite the reality that a

given firm’s use of green marketing is highly subjective, context

dependent, and often vague and confusing (Banerjee 2002; Chen

2010; Porter and Miles 2013; Saha and Darnton 2005; Savage and

Majot 1992). Moreover, as many industries lack widely accepted,

standardized, certifiable, third-party standards (e.g. ISO 9000) that

consumers and other stakeholders, can use to evaluate the veracity

of firms’ green marketing claims, it is all too common for organiza-

tions to engage in communications efforts that purposefully cloud,

misinform, or outright obfuscate their commitment to green mar-

keting—i.e., “green-washing” (Chen and Chang 2012; Delmas

2000; Delmas and Burbano 2011; Greer and Bruno 1996; Laufer

2003; Robins 2006). As a consequence, a variety of researchers

(e.g., Ottman and Terry 1998; Pecotich et al. 2003; Polonsky and

Rosenberger 2001; Sandhu 2010) have asserted that in many

84 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW

contexts consumers face great difficulty in trying to assess firms’

images and reputations for “environmentally friendly,” “green,” or

“sustainable” products or production practices. As Grove et al.

(1996) argue, “Business commitment to the environment has often

been more evident in their (the firm’s) communications than their

actual practices” (p. 674).

This has led to increasing scholarly and practitioner attention to

the costs associated with green-washing and how authentic firms

may differentiate themselves from deceptive, opportunistic, green-

washing competitors (e.g., Green 1994; Hartmann and Ibanez

2006; Hult 2011; Martinez 2014; Ramus and Montiel 2005). This

literature, however, has largely focused on two distinct levels of

analysis: (1) a micro level that describes individual consumers’

reactions to green-washing—i.e., helping firms and managers

understand consumer decision-making processes for rewarding

virtuous organizations and punishing firms perceived to be green-

washing (e.g., Bernstein 1984; Delmas and Burbano 2011;

Maignan and Ferrell 2004; Moisander 2007; Swaen and Vanhamme

2005), or (2) the macro-economic and public policy issues related to

green-washing (e.g., Donaldson and Preston 1995; Mahjoub and

Khamoussi 2013; Prakash 2002)—i.e., the potential impact of gov-

ernmental regulation or industry standards which may influence

firms’ green marketing (Kassinis and Vafeas 2006).

We argue that this focus has led to a gap in extant literature

which largely overlooks the potential firm- and peer-level factors,

such as image and reputation, that organizations may employ to

develop and communicate the authenticity of their green marketing

efforts in order to differentiate themselves from less-authentic (i.e.,

green-washing) rivals. To address this gap, this article adopts

stakeholder theory as interpreted by Spence et al. (2001) and

others to include firms’ “degree of accountability” to competitors as

an intermediate-level lens. These authors expand the “narrow” defi-

nition of an organization’s social network of stakeholders beyond,

“employees, suppliers, customers, communities, and shareholders”

who are considered to be the primary stakeholders to which a firm

has a moral responsibility” (Werhane and Freeman 1999). This

mezzo-level captures the elements of authentic green marketing of

the firm and illustrates how authentic reputations for green mar-

keting are conferred and policed by peer-competitor stakeholders

in order to provide differentiation within competitive marketplaces.

85PARKMAN AND KRAUSE