Programs Using Stakeholder Salience and Social Marketing

 

Joshua E. LeBlanc

(The University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada)

 

 

Abstract: In this paper, stakeholder theory is used to investigate the potential benefits of social marketing on workplace health programs. I begin by providing a brief overview of the obesity epidemic in North America, particularly in the United States. I propose that there are four underlying assumptions to the origin of obesity: advertising, genetic or biological, social and hedonistic. In reviewing the literature on Workplace Health Promotion Programs (WHPP’s) I assert that interventions are often based on these four assumptions, collapsed into two domains: obesity is a result of factors external to the individual or obesity is due to personal choices of the individual. Both environmental and policy based as well as multicomponent WHPP’s have been relatively ineffective in reducing workplace obesity (Kahn-Marshall & Gallant, 2012). I propose that social marketing can serve as a mediator between WHPP’s and employee health when: (1) members of the target population can be held accountable (2) the target population can be managed (i.e., a work group, department) and (3) there is open communication amongst the target population and between target and non-target populations. The lens of stakeholder theory will be used to evaluate which target population the social marketing campaign should seek to influence.

 

 

Key words: workplace health promotion programs; obesity prevention; social marketing; stakeholder theory

 

JEL code: I100