The philosophical underpinning of this book is that all organizations need to be aware of their stakeholders (shareholders) and know how to communicate with and manage them. Using a number of contemporary case studies both as examples and employing vignettes to outline core areas of theory, the text attempts to put together a number of tools to gauge and measure contemporary government and political activity. Its central argument is that marketing can be applied equally to societal life as it can to the commercial market.

Author Biography

Phil Harris Is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business, Enterprise and Life Long Learning and holder of the Westminster Chair of Marketing and Public Affairs at the University of Chester and a Director of the Chester International Centre for Corporate and Public Affairs Research . He is a past Chairman of the Marketing Council (UK) PLC, Board member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Professor of Marketing at the University of Otago, New Zealand and Founding Director of the Centre for Corporate and Public Affairs at Manchester Metropolitan University. Phil has organised major conferences such as Machiavelli at 500, the Academy of Marketing Conference and was invited to address the Beijing Forum at Peking University in 2011.He is joint founding editor of the Journal of Public Affairs and a member of a number of international editorial and advisory boards and has published extensively over 150 publications in the area of Chinese business, lobbying, entrepreneurship, political marketing, public affairs, relationship marketing and international trade. He is editor of the Sage Advanced Marketing series and founded the Chester Forum in 2010 as an annual think tank to generate critical knowledge and networks to underpin economic development and social cohesion in his region. Phil in 1996 coined the term "Machiavellian Marketing" in 1996 to explain the complex interface communications interface between Government and Business, strategic political lobbying. He has been actively involved in public affairs for two decades