Albion, Mark 1951- (Mark S. Albion)

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Albion, Mark 1951- (Mark S. Albion)

PERSONAL:

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

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dover, MA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, businessman, and real estate broker. Held 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); cofounder of Students for Responsible Business. Has appeared on the television news show 60 Minutes.

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 on Advertising'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 Manufacturer Advertising on Consumer Prices: A Managerial Overview, Marketing Science Institute (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 with 1-2-3, Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1988.

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

(With Lawler Kang) Passion at Work: How to Find Work You Love and Live the Time of Your Life, Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 2005.

True to Yourself: Leading a Values-based Business, Berrett-Koehler (San Francisco, CA), 2006.

Also wrote and narrated the audio CD, Finding Work That Matters, Sounds True, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

When Mark 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." Typically, Albion began work on this book while backpacking around the world. Published in 2000, it soon reached the New York Times business bestseller list. Albion hopes to convince readers that by following their own true interests in life, they can in turn lead productive lives that help to build a better society. To prove his point, Albion uses twelve case studies of successful entrepreneurs, both men and women, who "found the courage and motivation to re-create successful professional lives guided by passion," as a Planet IT contributor noted.

Albion has formed 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 Advertising Controversy: Evidence on the 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.

Planet IT, September 1, 2000, review of Making a Life, Making a Living.

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.