Progress isn’t always without costs. It is great when it is, but sometimes it won’t be. You can’t be paralyzed by the presence of a downside when you see a much bigger upside. One of the major public policy books of 2025 has been Ezra Klein‘s and Derek Thompson‘s Abundance. This argues that liberals need to embrace…
Author: neilbendle
Neil is an Associate Professor Marketing at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. He investigates the measurement of marketing performance, the accounting/marketing interface, and the impact of non-standard decision making in commercial and political markets.
Neil is the Chair of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board advisors. He is co-author of Marketing Metrics: The Manager’s Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance (3rd edition) Wharton School Press and is co-author of a cartoon book: Behavioural Economics for Kids.
IRS Agents Deserve Our Thanks
The USA has a history of not liking taxation much. There are plenty of reasons not to like the way the US does its taxation. US taxes appear complex, unnecessarily time consuming, and occasionally a bit random. And that is without considering the more controversial issue of whether they are ‘fair’. The US government, and…
Unexpected Friends to Innovation
Businesspeople like to complain about things, a lot. To be fair they are people, and that is something we people like to do. As such, it is always interesting to see when things that may seem like complaints to some turn out to be boons to innovation. What then are a few unexpected friends to…
Positive Results From Mixed Motives
One challenge I see in the world of sustainability is the assumption that only perfect motives will lead to good results. While perfect motives are a great thing, if we wait around to find them we won’t get very far. We should welcome positive results from mixed motives. After all, it is really the positive…
A Broad Or A Narrow Church
One of the big challenges in any movement is whether to aim to be a broad or a narrow church. Should you form a tight bond with only those who perfectly agree with you, or link up with those who you share some overlap but far from perfect alignment? There is no universal answer to…
Tangibilizing Sustainability’s Value For Stakeholders
A major challenge in sustainable business is that many of the good things we want simply can’t be seen. The electronics equipment you are considering may have be made by people being paid a decent wage, or it may not have been. You don’t really know the difference from just looking at the product. Gregory…
Marketing Is An Essential Part Of Positive Change
To change the way commerce works requires good business practice — in all senses of the word good. Marketing is an essential part of positive change. It isn’t good enough to want to do good things for the world with your company, you also need to be a good marketer. To make a positive change…
Change Brands
Chris Baker has a great book, called Obsolete, which focuses on Change Brands. The book discusses how these innovative small brands can help drive towards a more sustainable society. Change Brands The idea of a change brands is similar to a challenger brand but with added purpose. The change brand is a small player attempting…
Should Firms Advertise Their Good Deeds?
How do you get credit for your good deeds? A 2015 paper considers this problem. The authors suggest that informing people of your good deeds can backfire. People attribute impure motives to anyone who draws attention to their good deeds. A similar issue occurs for companies. So, should firms advertise their good deeds? A Moral…
Will Consumers Actually Pay For Sustainability?
There are many ways that sustainable business can be financially successful. One of the first things that comes to mind is that consumers might be willing to pay more for products that are produced in a responsible way. Most consumers would prefer their products not to be made by child labor or to pollute the…
