Marketing as the duty to care for stakeholders, society and the environment: a literature review on stewardship theory

We offer a cross-disciplinary review of the use of stewardship, including accounting, strategy, marketing, tourism and other specialty areas of business and management studies. To do so we analyze almost 1,500 academic articles and offer a critical account of what can be learned from this review. In particular, when a stewardship perspective guides managerial action, marketing strategy can be redefined to ensure a company’s ability to face contemporary gran challenges, through the duty to take care of stakeholders, society and the environment.