ECONOMIC DIPLOMACY SEMINAR – EDS 2008

Fužine, Croatia

MARKETING PARADIGM SHIFT

Worldview and Servant Marketing Model

Prof. dr. Miodrag Hitrec

Associate Professor, Marketing Department

University of Zagreb, GraduateSchool of Economics and Business,

Dražen Glavaš, BS, MA, CMC

Professor, PrivateBusinessCollege Vern’, Zagreb

President,Partner Business Association, Zagreb

e-mail:

This paper was presented at the

International Conference, An Enterprise Odyssey: Economics and Business in the New Millennium 2002, University of Zagreb, GraduateSchool of Economics & Businesss, Zagreb, June 27-29, 2002

MARKETING PARADIGM SHIFT

Worldview and Servant Marketing Model

1. INTRODUCTION

In March 2002, ARTHUR ANDERSEN was indicted on charges of obstructing justice. In August 2002, ENRON pleaded guilty to money laundering. The WORLDCOM story continued the fraud chain including: ADELPHIA COMMUNICATIONS, TYCO, andIMCLONE SYSTEMS. A recent issue of FORTUNE magazine (Sept. 9, 2002) is entitled The Greedy Bunch - meet the 25 companies with the greediest executives. Among them are Lou Pai former ENRON division head who cashed out $270 million and Dennis Kozlowski former CEO of TYCO who cashed out $258 million before their companies fell. In the last year FORTUNE and and other business magazines have been writing about greed, failing ethics, and mistrust. The year before the title story of FORTUNE (July, 2001) was God and Business - the Surprising Quest for Spiritual Renewal in the American Workplace. In this paper we challenge economies and particularly marketing based on “Greed.” Our intention is to show the deeper underlying worldview, paradigm that produces “Greed” and to explore a different alternative - economy and marketing based on “God.”

We live in a “global village” where the only constant is change. The computer power doubles every 18 months (Moore’s Law) and globalization is quickly spreading around the world creating more and more complex cultural and human relationships. September 11th turned another page in world history bringing an emphasis on security as well as many other consequences that are not yet evident. The most significant was/is the war in Iraq. Our world is divided, argues Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington[1], not so much by geographical boundaries as by religious and cultural traditions, by people‘s most deeply held beliefs –by worldviews. Huntington predicted a clash between the worldviews of three major traditional civilizations: The Western world, the Islamic world, and the Confucian East. Political scientist James Kurth, (Huntingtons former student) challenged him arguing that the most significant clash would be within Western civilization – “between those who adhere to a Judeo-Christian framework and those who favor postmodernism and multiculturalism.”[2] Charles Colson, former presidential aide to Richard Nixon, believes Kurth is right. “And the reason this conflict within Western culture is so significant is that Western culture may soon dominate the globe. … Across the globe, people are complaining about what one French politician described as a ‘U.S. cultural invasion.’”[3] John Pilger puts it even more harshly quoting an article in Washington Post. “In an article entitled ‘Unilateralism is the key to our success’, Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post described the world in the next fifty years as one without protection against nuclear attack or environmental damage for the citizens of any country except the United States; a world where ‘democracy’ means nothing if its benefits are at odds with American ‘interest’; a world in which to express dissent against these ‘interest’ brands one a terrorist and justifies surveillance, repression and death.”[4]

The environment in which “modern” marketing has developed and which it had influenced throughout the last ten years is rapidly changing. The mutual relationship of marketing and its environment may be looked at by merely noticing what is visible. Yet, it is possible to look more deeply, examining its foundations by trying to understand how worldview influences marketing. This is our intention in this paper. This paper touches on a wide range of topics thus there is not always a satisfactory explanation for everything. Comprehensive explanations and arguments may be found in other works which we refer to in this study.

Many people are disturbed by the recent high-profile meltdowns, but by which ethical norms in our postmodern, pluralistic global world do we judge these corporate frauds (enronisms) or Naomi Klein‘s[5] well documented brand-name secrets and transnational corporations scandals (Nike sneakers have been traced back to the abusive sweatshops of Vietnam, Barbie‘s little outfits back to the child laborers of Sumatra, Starbucks‘ lattes to the sun-scorched coffee fields of Guatemala, and Shell‘s oil back to the polluted and impoverished villages of the Niger Delta.)? How do we know what is right and wrong? Deeper moral and ethical questions are louder and louder in the global market economy. The UN‘s Global Compact promoted by Kofi Annan, Hans Küng‘s World Ethos[6] and other global ethics initatives are trying to provide some answers. The answer to the question what is right and wrong depends on our worldview.

2. WORLDVIEW[7]

“A worldview is a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic makeup of our world.”[8] Other synonyms of worldview include: “mental infrastructure”, “religious assumption”, “metanaration”, “cultural story”, Marxist call a worldview “ideology” and scientist a “paradigm”.

Stephen Covey in his bestseller “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”[9] compares a paradigm with a city map. Maps explain the reality we see around us. It will be of little help to have a map of Vienna (on which by mistake is printed Zagreb) in finding a certain location in Zagreb. We can work hard on our behavior (trying more, working harder, speeding up etc.) or attitudes (positive thinking, developing self confidence, motivation, etc.) but this will not help us arrive at the desired destination in Zagreb. The problem is that we have a wrong city map. Looking at the wrong map we interpret the reality around us wrongly. Covey talks about two kinds of maps that we carry in our heads, one showing the “reality” (the things as they are) and the other “values” (the things as they should be) through which we interpret everything that we experience. The way we see things determines our thinking and behavior. Our worldviews determine our values.

An excellent history of the worldview concept was provided by David K. Naugle in his book “Worldview.”[10] Some authors[11] talk about three basic worldview archetypes: NATURALISM or secularism (Naturalism sees reality as “ultimately physical”), BIBLICAL THEISM (Reality is “ultimately personal” because it has been created by the personal God) and ANIMISM (Animism views reality as essentially spiritual, “animated” by spirits).

Darrow L. Miller analyzes the influence of worldview on development. As an illustration we can look at how those three above mentioned worldviews understand history and what consequences this understanding has in development work. Miller asks two questions: The first is ontological: “Where have we come from?” The second is teleological: “Where are we going?” Animism answers both questions with a resounding, “No-where!” To the animist, life is like a wheel, a series of endless cycles: birth, marriage, death; spring, summer, etc. Human soul travels from one life to another in a continuing process of a reincarnation. History does not have any meaning. Naturalism (secularism) answers the question where are we going with an emphatic, “To the grave!” Its symbol is the hourglass. Time and resources are running out. And while the secularist can indeed see time passing in a way the animist cannot, he has no transcendent historical perspective. Secularism has no answers to life’s ontological and teleological questions. Built upon Judeo-Christian theism, the development ethic introduces a radical concept of time – that it is linear, with past, present, and future. History is open, also; God, angels, and men can intervene to change its course. It’s no wonder, then, that cultures rooted in this ethic expect that life can get better, that progress is possible in the material world. These societies have hope for the future, a sense of optimism, a sense of ambition, action, and discovery. History is going somewhere.

What is the major worldview challenge today? Some scholars[12] believe that the major conflict of our day is theism versus naturalism. Before we look at main characteristics of those two worldviews and their implication on marketing we need to have a historical context.

We could start with 1450 and the invention of the printing press by Guttenberg but instead we will start with May 24, 1543. A few hours before his death Copernicus (1473-1543) published his only scientific work , On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres about heliocentric theory. This started the first major paradigm shift replacing the Medieval Ptolemeic theory of the world and opening a new page of the Renaissance history. “Kepler (1571-1630) building on the work of Copernicus, was creating something new in which truth was not required to gain favor in God’s eyes. … It remained for Galileo (1564-1642) who first used the telescope as an instrument of science (died in 1642 the year Isaac Newton was born) to make visible the unresolvable contradictions between science and theology, that is, between intellectual and moral points of view. … Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo put in place the dynamite that would blow up the theology and metaphysics of the medieval world.”[13]

One of the consequences of these discoveries was the deenthronement of man and Earth from the privileged center in the universe. This thinking changed human relationship toward religion and started the chasm between reason and faith. Suddenly there were two sources of truth: Church and science. Unfortunately the moral decay[14] of clergy during those years also contributed to it. Dr. Hans Küng, who played a major role in the writing of the documents of Vatican II, in his new book The Catholic Church – a Short History notes how Martin Luther (1483-1546), Augustinian monk, furthered this change when he posted his ninety-five theses in Wittenberg in 1517[15]: “From the perspective of the present day we can understand the Reformation better as a paradigm change: a change in the overall constellation of theology, church, and society. No less then the Copernican revolution in the change from a geocentric to a heliocentric picture of the world, Luther’s Reformation was an epoch-making change from the medieval Roman Catholic paradigm to the Protestant-Evangelical paradigm: in theology and the church it was a move away from the all too human ecclesiocentricity of the powerful church to the christocentricity of the gospel.”[16]

Some of the most important figures during the “shift” period from theism to naturalism are: Francis Bacon (1561-1626); Thomas Hobs (1588-1679); Rene Descartes (1596-1650); John Locke (1632-1714); Isaac Newton (1642-1727); David Hume (1711-1766); Adam Smith (1723-1790); James Watt (1765 inventions of steam engine); Imanuel Kant (1724-1804); Georg Hegel (1770-1831); Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

3. NATURALISM

This paper is too short to do justice to a worldview such as Naturalism, but we will just offer a brief overview for purpose of discussion:[17]

1. Matter exists eternally and is all there is. God does not exist;

2.The cosmos exist as a uniformity of cause and effect in a closed system;

3. Human beings are complex “machines”; personality is an interrelation of chemical and physical properties we do not yet fully understand;

4. Death is extinction of personality and individuality;

5. History is a linear stream of events linked by cause and effect without an overarching purpose;

6. Ethics is related only to human beings.

Some problematic questions arise when we ask about meaning and purpose. Does naturalism give a foundation to think of ourselves as worthy? On what basis? Unique maybe, but even gorillas are unique. Can a being that just exists by accident be valuable?

The main problem with naturalism is the meaning and purpose of human life. And if we do not have any purpose then we do not have any responsibility and it does not matter how we live. In morality, naturalism results in relativism. If nature (cosmos) is all there is, then there is no transcendental source of moral truth and people are left to make up their own rights and wrongs, according to their subjective or cultural criteria. Instead of morality, we have situational ethics. Dostoyevski (and before him Nietzsche) rightly maintained that everything is allowed if there is no God. Most naturalists (secularists) cannot live logically within their own system. Some ended up in Nihilism[18]: Nietzsche, Hemingway committed suicide, Beckett wrote black comedies, Kafka and others. Existentialism came as an answer to nihilism. As dr. Sire puts it”…the essence of existentialism’s most important goal is summed up in one phrase – to transcend nihilism.”[19]

If we are just cosmic accidents without purpose a logical conclusion is well put by Leslie Newbigin: “If I do not know the purpose for which human life was designed, I have no basis for saying that any kind of human life-style is good or bad. It is simply an example of human life as it is. Judgment about what is good or bad can only be personal hunches. Each person will be entitled to her own. They will be, as we say, personal beliefs; and since there is no objective fact by which to test them, pluralism operates.”[20]

The World that was created in the hundred years after the Enlightenment is a world of causes and affects. Everything is understood and explained in the terms of the fundamental law of physics. “In the context of a growing scientistic and mechanistic world view, it was almost inevitable that the ultimate goal of life would be something which could be mechanistically produced and mathematically quantified – namely economic growth.”[21] We have come to realize that economic growth does have definite ecological, social and psychological limits. Today we know from “particle physics” that the ultimate elements of what we call matter are not material. And the development of “quantum physics” has shown that the concept of a purely mechanical system operating without purpose is mistaken. There are no “value-free facts” and a mechanical universe!

Naturalism is important for our discussion because: 1. Marxism is “one of the most historically significant forms of naturalism”[22] that impacted socialist countries of former Eastern Europe for more then 45 years, and 2. because it dominates universities, colleges and high schools in the capitalist West and provides the framework for most scientific study. Understanding the predominant worldview (ideology) that has been influencing countries in transition and the global market economy might help in answering the question: Why is there a profound gap between the economies in transition and competitive democracies? Although this is not our main question we hope that our paper will be a small contribution to this discussion as well. Behind the fallen Berlin wall there is still a shadow. Juraj Kušnierik and Milan Čičel in their research paper Shadows of the Past – The impact of communism on the way people think in postcommunist society[23] provide a helpful summary of some of the consequences that communism had on the present business culture:

-Fear of social problems. The social situation is perceived as something unalterable. An individual is a mere helpless subject of the economic (and political) environment. People often say; “There is nothing we can do to change the situation.” Responsibility for one’s own life is rare.

-Lack of creativity in economic activities. An unwritten rule of communist economic activities was: “Anything not allowed is forbidden.” The postcommunist societies of Central and Eastern Europe are still not mobile and creative enough to properly handle the complexities of a free-market economy.

-High risk avoidance. The majority of the population would prefer safer, although less effective, ways of economic activity before riskier, but more profitable, ones.

-Strong remnants of a collectivist culture. Individualism is still treated as something strange, almost evil. Social “empathy” with the unemployed is strong and officially supported by most of the political parties. Trade unions are quite influential, although strikes are rare (with Poland as an important exception).

-Hierarchical thinking. Many companies, especially the larger, (formerly) state owned ones cling to outmoded hierarchical models of management. That causes many problems in the new, changed situation in which more up-to-date, team based management models fit much better. Also, people in the lower levels of a management hierarchy tend to be passive, feeling they cannot influence anything or very little.

-Biased ethical values. It is very clear in the attitude to work, employers, customers and the State. Work, although officially glorified under communism, is still understood as a necessary evil. There are big problems with discipline, quality control, financial mismanagement, etc. Employers, whether state or private, are perceived as potential enemies who exploit their employees. That is why cheating them is not seen as such a bad thing after all. Customers are not “always right” This is particularly evident when dealing with the bureaucratic monsters or state administration and big state-owned companies. Customers or clients are treated like intruders who disturb the peace and comfort of the employees. And finally, the State is still recognized as an economic enemy, taking unjustified taxes from its subjects. That is why tax evasion is generally justified in public opinion.