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Charting relationship marketing practice: it really didn’t emerge in the 1970s

Mark Tadajewski (Durham University Business School, Durham University, Thornaby-on-Tees, UK)

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

ISSN: 1755-750X

Article publication date: 16 November 2015

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a history of relational perspectives in marketing practice from the nineteenth through to the twentieth century.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper engages in a systematic reading of published histories of retailing practice using the key attributes of transaction and relationship marketing as a conceptual framework to interrogate whether earlier practitioners were committed to either approach.

Findings

This paper supplements the studies conducted in other domains that undermine the idea that relational practices were rejected in favor of transaction-type approaches during the industrialization of the USA and Canada.

Practical implications

The content of this paper provides textbook authors with a means to fundamentally revise the way they discuss relationship marketing. It has a similar pedagogic utility.

Originality/value

This paper studies the writings of practitioners known to be pioneers of retailing to unravel their business philosophies, comparing and contrasting these to known attributes of relationship marketing. It deals with an historical period that has not previously been studied in this level of detail by marketing historians.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Brian Jones for his critical commentary on this and related projects.

Citation

Tadajewski, M. (2015), "Charting relationship marketing practice: it really didn’t emerge in the 1970s", Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 486-508. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHRM-03-2015-0010

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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