Albion, Mark S. 1951-

views updated

ALBION, Mark S. 1951-

* indicates that a listing has been compiled from secondary sources believed to be reliable, but has not been personally verified for this edition by the author sketched.

PERSONAL: Born April 3, 1951, in Boston, MA; son of Donald Leo and Leni Cohen (Joyce) Albion; married Johanna Lee Hughson, May 31, 1981; children: Amanda, Nicolette. Education: Harvard, A.B., 1973; A.M., 1977; Ph.D., 1981.

ADDRESSES: Home—6 Longfellow Rd., Wellesley Hills, MA 02181.

CAREER: Businessman and real estate broker. Various marketing positions at Fortune 500 companies, including Procter and Gamble and Coca-Cola; marketing professor at Harvard University for twenty years; private marketing consultant; founder of You & Company (employment firm); co-founder of Students for Responsible Business.

AWARDS, HONORS: Harvard Business School fellow, 1980; Outstanding Teaching Award, Harvard-Danforth Center, 1980; Procter & Gamble Research award, 1985.

WRITINGS:

(With Paul W. Farris) Appraising Research onAdvertising's Economic Impacts, Marketing Science Institute (Cambridge, MA), 1979.

(With Paul W. Farris) The Advertising Controversy:Evidence on the Economic Effects of Advertising, Auburn House Publishing Company (Boston, MA), 1981.

(With Paul W. Farris) The Effect of ManufacturerAdvertising on Consumer Prices: A Managerial Overview, Marketing Science Insitute (Cambridge, MA), 1982.

Advertising's Hidden Effects: Manufacturer's Advertising and Retail Pricing, Auburn House (Boston, MA), 1983.

(With Edward J. Hoff) Business Decision-Making with1-2-3, Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1988.

Making a Life, Making a Living: Reclaiming YourPurpose and Passion in Business and in Life, Warner Books (New York, NY), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: When Mark S. Albion set out to build his career in business he took all the conventional paths to success: he attended a first-rate business school, received all the right business degrees, and participated in all the right activities. His ambition was rewarded when Albion received a prestigious Harvard University professorship. Yet the young professor never forgot his roots in the social idealism of the 1960s. "I detested Western capitalism," he wrote on the Time Warner Bookmark Web site. "I had never really lost the ideals of the 1960s. I just wanted material comforts." Albion introduced ethical questions to his classes and expected his students to deal with these issues in depth. He started a student organization, Students for Responsible Business, that eventually expanded nationwide. Yet he became increasingly disillusioned by a field that, he felt, ignored humane values. Too many companies, in his view, simply aimed at selling their products; they took from the communities that housed them without giving anything in return. After twenty years at Harvard Business School (during which one of his consulting clients, United Sciences of America, was indicted for operating a pyramid scheme), Albion decided to give up his teaching career to focus on creating socially responsible business networks.

In Making a Life, Making a Living: Reclaiming Your Purpose and Passion in Business and in Life, Albion articulates his belief in "humanistic marketing." The book presents the experiences of several entrepreneurs who achieved success without compromising their commitment to socially responsible values. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly commented that the book "powerfully illustrates what can be accomplished when, in our work lives, we use our heads while following our hearts."

Albion has formed the You & Company, an employment firm that seeks to find MBA's jobs with socially responsible employers. According to Geoffrey Smith in Business Week, Albion says that his mission "will be accomplished when no MBA has to say they compromised making a life for making a living." Albion publishes a monthly newsletter about humanistic marketing called "Making a Life" and has been featured on 60 Minutes.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, January 1, 2000, David Rouse, review of Making a Life, Making a Living: Reclaiming Your Purpose and Passion in Business and in Life, p. 843.

Business Week, May 19, 1997, Geoffrey Smith, "The Gospel according to Dr. Mark," p. 61.

Choice, July-August, 1981, review of The AdvertisingControversy: Evidence of Economic Effects of Advertising, p. 1582; June, 1983, review of Advertising's Hidden Effects: Manufacturer's Advertising and Retail Pricing, pp. 1501-1502.

Journal of Consumer Affairs, summer, 1982, Vincent P. Norris, review of The Advertising Controversy, pp. 173-177.

Publishers Weekly, December 13, 1999, review of Making a Life, Making a Living, p. 76.

Wall Street Review of Books, winter, 1983, Stanley I. Ornstein, review of The Advertising Controversy, pp. 44-46.