Search results

The purpose of this article is to chronicle the publication events in the 1980s and 1990s that framed the development of the series of controversies in marketing that are known as the “philosophy debates”.

The article uses a participant’s retrospective approach.

The article finds that seven publication events are key to understanding marketing’s philosophy debates. The seven are the publication of the “little green book” by Grid, Inc. in 1976; the philosophy of science panel discussion held at the Winter American Marketing Association Educators’ Conference in 1982; the special issue of the Journal of Marketing on marketing theory in 1983; three articles on the “critical relativist perspective” by the Journal of Consumer Research in 1986 and 1988; the “blue book” by South-Western in 1991; a trilogy of articles on truth, positivism and objectivity in the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Research in 1990-1993; and an article on “rethinking marketing” in the European Journal of Marketing in 1994.

Chronicling the key publication events enables readers to understand what the debates were about and provides readers a starting point for further investigating the issues in the debates.

The perceptions of 497 consumers of the various philosophies involved in the evolution of marketing thought — product, selling, marketing and societal marketing concepts are examined. Results show that the sample fails to delineate the subtle distinctions between the product, marketing and societal marketing concepts, and support is lent to the view that if the marketing concept is to be more broadly implemented, product and social dimensions found within the definitional domain of the product and societal marketing concepts should be encompassed to establish a wider marketing‐oriented philosophy.

Although many authors argue that practising marketing internally facilitates the implementation of the market orientation concept, systematic empirical research to explore the validity of the argument remains surprisingly scarce. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the relationship between market orientation (MO) and internal‐market orientation (IMO) as well as their joint effect on customer satisfaction.

The findings ground on data collected from dyads of financial services providers and their customers. The former provided the information pertaining to the company's degree of MO and IMO adoption as well as on perceived employee value, while the latter were asked about perceived customer value, perceived service quality and their satisfaction with their provider. In total 127 dyads are employed in the analysis.

The findings show that MO and IMO are two inter‐related concepts, probably falling under the marketing philosophy umbrella. Through MO adoption, customer perceived value and customer perceived quality of the service increase. Through IMO adoption, the company improves the level of employee perceived value, which also results in higher levels of customer perceived service quality. Interestingly enough, IMO adoption is also found to have a direct impact on customer perceived service quality.

The major implication from the study is that adopting a market orientation does help improve customer satisfaction but this objective is better served when developing a more holistic view of marketing and trying to simultaneously offer value to other company stakeholders, such as the employees. The major limitation of the study is the focus on services. When it comes to manufactured goods, customers receive significant value from the tangible parts of the product and consequently further investigation is required before any generalization can be made on the basis of the strength of the relationships that this study reveals.

The most significant implication for practitioners is the need to strike the right balance between the company's internal and external orientation. To achieve this, companies have to invest in integrating the marketing and the human resource functions, in much the same manner in which they attempt to integrate marketing with other company functions that also influence customers' experiences.

This is the first empirical study to investigate the inter‐relationship and the joint effect of two well established notions, i.e. that between MO and IMO, and thus offers the required support to normative arguments regarding the need to sustain a balance between the company's external and internal focus.

The purpose of this paper is to review the philosophy of science debates in the marketing literature and describe the current situation in marketing with respect to philosophy of science issues.

As a viewpoint/conceptual paper, the approach is largely a review of the literature with interspersed personal commentary.

The paper summarises the key contentions of opposing academics and attempt to convey the futility and pointlessness of such argumentation and describe a novel (to marketing) “attitude” to conducting marketing research.

Rather than argue one particular perspective, it is this paper's central thesis that no one philosophical perspective does or should have a monopoly on what constitutes making a useful contribution to our understanding of marketing phenomena.

Provides a review of the nature of marketing. In order to explicate this work, presents marketing as a concept, management philosophy and organizational function. Acknowledges the contribution of key authors in the field, such as Alderson, Bagozzi, Houston, Hunt and Sheth, and pays attention to the nature of developments in marketing. Provides illustration to the evolution of marketing as a discipline with specific regard to the theoretical foundations of the subject matter. Draws various conclusions and makes certain implications as to the future of marketing.

Marketing thought originating from the era of the barter system, gradually evolved into production and sales orientations, with greater emphasis on the process, quality, and selling of products. Thereafter, customer satisfaction as an essential component of the strategic decision process occupies a significant position among various marketing activities. This paper aims to address the inadequate research inputs on determining the time‐specific evolutionary relevance of marketing thought divulging into the essential components of each marketing concept, especially those with customer satisfaction as a dimension in the measurement construct.

A detailed, conceptually integrated analysis of various marketing philosophies is offered to facilitate business executives in examining the philosophy followed by their companies and how to move vertically in pursuance of improved business performance.

In comparison to the Indian market, which is fast becoming an attraction for the developed nations as an investment hub, it is the observed and experienced that public sector corporations are still at the production orientation stage, whereas private companies are predominantly using the sales‐oriented approach. The present status of customer orientation, market orientation and relationship marketing culture in India, is quite distinct from the status in the West as indicated by literature published in the developed countries. Banking, insurance, tourism, and hospitals still need to ensure minimum customer‐oriented services, which are not performed impressively in India.

Being a conceptual and country specific paper, the paper lacks wider generalization of its findings. Moreover, at many instances personal judgment of the authors might have resulted into biased interpretation.

Indian companies, with a few exceptions, lack an adequate orientation to pursue continuous market research in order to sense new developments, which are taking place due to the implementation of advanced information technology leading to greater exposure to customers. It can, thus, be synthesized that with respect to marketing practices in Indian settings, the existing large gap between the theory and implementation is drawing much attention from those concerned with the socio‐economic consequences associated with future business goals.

This paper can help managers in evaluating their business orientation level, but how to improve it further or update them as per ongoing changes in marketing thought and practice, has to be investigated and examined on continuous basis. Hence, empirical testing and validation of the constructs originating from the study have to be pursued, so as to analyze both the nature and the extent of the business orientation of a particular firm.

The marketing literature uses five different experience terms that are supposed to represent different streams of research. Many papers do not provide a definition, most of the used definitions are unclear, the different experience terms have similar dimensionality and are regularly used interchangeably or have the same meaning. In addition, the existing definitions are not adequately informed from other disciplines that have engaged with experience. This paper aims to build a comprehensive conceptual framework of experience in marketing informed by related disciplines aiming to provide a more holistic definition of the term.

This research follows previously established procedures by conducting a systematic literature review of experience. From the approximately 5,000 sources identified in three disciplines, 267 sources were selected, marketing (148), philosophy (90) and psychology (29). To address definitional issues the analysis focused on enlightening four premises.

This paper posits that the term brand experience can be used in all marketing-related experiences and proposes four premises that may resolve the vagaries associated with the term’s conceptualization. The four premises address the what, who, how and when of brand experience and aim to rectify conceptual issues. Brand experience is introduced as a multi-level phenomenon.

The suggested singular term, brand experience, captures all experiences in marketing. The identified additional elements of brand experience, such as the levels of experience and the revision of emotions within brand experience as a continuum, tempered by repetition, should be considered in future research.

The multi-level conceptualization may provide a greater scope for dynamic approaches to brand experience design thus providing greater opportunities for managers to create sustainable competitive advantages and differentiation from competitors.

This paper completes a systematic literature review of brand experience across marketing, philosophy and psychology which delineates and enlightens the conceptualization of brand experience and presents brand experience in a multi-level conceptualization, opening the possibility for further theoretical, methodological and interdisciplinary promise.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospection on the importance, origins and development of the research programs in the author’s career.

The study uses an autobiographical approach.

Most of the articles, research monographs and books that constitute this research and publishing efforts can be categorized into seven distinct, but related, research programs: channels of distribution; marketing theory; marketing’s philosophy debates; macromarketing and ethics; relationship marketing; resource-advantage theory; and marketing management and strategy. The value system that has guided these research programs has been shaped by specific events that took place in the author’s formative years. This essay chronicles these events and the origins and development of the seven research programs.

Chronicling the importance, origins and development of the seven research programs will hopefully motivate and assist other scholars in developing their own research programs.

The purpose of this exploratory empirical study was to examine the link between effective marketing practices and business performance in the financial services industry. Based on a multi‐item construct of marketing effectiveness, data were generated from 52 banks and building societies. The effects of different marketing effectiveness dimensions upon profitability and growth as well as customer‐based performance indicators were investigated. Our results suggest that organisational variables such as customer philosophy, operational efficiency, marketing information and integrated marketing organisation are generally, significantly and positively associated with business performance. To conclude, managerial implications of the findings, study limitations and future research directions are discussed.

The connections between political parties, the electorate (individual voters) and society at large, that may be achieved through applying marketing is an important area in need of research. Understanding such connections is vitally important for effective and efficient use of marketing in politics and also for improvement in the delivery of the political offering to society. This paper presents the findings of an exploratory research project carried out in Australia on the philosophical basis and operationalisation of marketing in politics. A survey and in‐depth interviews were undertaken to explore issues related to the application of market orientation and its relationship to the marketing concept in political marketing. The results highlight unique dimensions and relationships of marketing in politics.