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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Swedish Advertisers’ Association's role in the institutional development of Swedish international advertising during 1955–1972.

A qualitative analysis of business association sources is used to explore the institutional development of international advertising.

A new postwar paradigm that focused on a consumer-oriented brand ideology enabled marketing executives in the Swedish Advertisers’ Association to develop a new discourse on international advertising in Sweden, which then was institutionalized within a national network on export promotion. The institutionalization process was supported by a corporatist system typical of smaller export dependent postwar European economies.

While based on a national case, this study points to the importance of understanding how advertising concepts are embedded within other economic, political and cultural systems than in those they originated in and how this contributes to a heterogenous implementation of similar ideas and practices. This study also illustrates how members can use their association to institutionalize a new discourse on marketing and network with other actors to enhance the use and reputation of its ideas and practices.

By highlighting the importance of analyzing both internal and external organizational relations, this study contributes to the research on history of marketing by making salient the importance of an institutional perspective to understand key processes in marketing. In practice neither the institutional perspective nor the explanatory power of discourse has received much attention, therefore the study results should be both interesting and valid for practitioners as well.

The study of the historical development of international advertising is limited and often descriptive. This study contributes to the literature by using a theoretical and methodological approach to make salient how the interaction between discourse, marketing associations and other collective actors propelled the institutionalization of international advertising within a specific national context.

This paper aims to explore the sociological process behind the development of the American Marketing Association (AMA). It shows how the shift from isolated endeavors to an organized movement happened in marketing, how and why marketing pioneers merged to build a professional body and what this body provided to its community and to society at large.

This paper studies the history of the AMA from the perspective of the sociology of science and relies on the marketing literature and other written sources.

The paper shows that the AMA is both the result and the center of a coupling procedure. Isolated pioneers in the marketing field found it useful to communicate with those who were engaged in endeavors similar to their own. The meeting resulted in a dialog, and the dialog had necessitated the establishment of the AMA as a common reference point. The AMA provided the marketing community with a language and an institution that could help them to exist and move forward together.

This paper provides an up to date account of the history of the AMA as well as a sociological analysis of its development.

The purpose of this article is intended to record the author’s personal reflections on his term of office as President of the American Marketing Association (AMA).

Personal reflections are provided in an autobiographical approach.

The article discusses the AMA situation during the 1970s, membership and conferences, the Office of the President and the author’s goals and objectives as President of the AMA. Other issues discussed include certification, Canadian affiliates, the New York Chapter and how the AMA handled the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Marketing during this period in time. International issues during the author’s Presidency included the International Marketing Federation, AMA’s International Activities and Strategic Plans and the Global Division. Political issues included dealing with the Doctoral Consortium, Bureau of the Census, the White House Department of Consumer Affairs, AMA Advocacy and a definition of Marketing.

This article records events and memories that might otherwise be forgotten. No other such account has been published of William Lazer’s term as President of the AMA.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

BUSINESS SCHOOL GRAFFITI is a highly personal and revealing account of the first ten years (1965–1975) at Britain’s University Business Schools. The progress achieved is documented in a whimsical fashion that makes it highly readable. Gordon Wills has been on the inside throughout the decade and has played a leading role in two of the major Schools. Rather than presuming to present anything as pompous as a complete history of what has happened, he recalls his reactions to problems, issues and events as they confronted him and his colleagues. Lord Franks lit a fuse which set a score of Universities and even more Polytechnics alight. There was to be a bold attempt to produce the management talent that the pundits of the mid‐sixties so clearly felt was needed. Buildings, books, teachers who could teach it all, and students to listen and learn were all required for the boom to happen. The decade saw great progress, but also a rapid decline in the relevancy ethic. It saw a rapid withering of interest by many businessmen more accustomed to and certainly desirous of quick results. University Vice Chancellors, theologians and engineers all had to learn to live with the new and often wealthier if less scholarly faculty members who arrived on campus. The Research Councils had to decide how much cake to allow the Business Schools to eat. Most importantly, the author describes the process of search he went through as an individual in evolving a definition of his own subject and how it can best be forwarded in a University environment. It was a process that carried him from Technical College student in Slough to a position as one of the authorities on his subject today.

The marketing field established important institutions – college courses, teachable texts, professional associations, and regular conferences – during the first three decades of the twentieth century, but did not fully mature as a scholarly discipline until the first specialized journals were launched in the mid‐1930s. The aim of this paper is to better understand the marketing discipline during this crucial formative period, especially the structure, presentation, and content of marketing knowledge.

The primary sources are The American Marketing Journal and the National Marketing Review, the two predecessor journals that combined to form Journal of Marketing in 1936. They are examined for publishing data and content areas, article format and authorship, and the topics and methods constituting marketing knowledge.

The scholarship published in the first marketing journals was written by single authors who only infrequently cited other works. A wide range of topics were explored with much attention given to issues of marketing and society. Marketing writers considered their field a science and showed confidence in it despite dire environmental conditions.

The primary sources examined have been all but forgotten and deserve to be revisited. The research investigates not only the texts themselves, but the people who wrote them, their professional biographies and associational activities, and the larger academic and social environments of their time.

Three basic approaches to retail institutional change can be discerned in the last 30 years. The first contends that institutional evolution is a function of developments in the socio‐economic environment. The second argues that change occurs in a cyclical fashion. The third considers inter‐institutional conflict to be the mainspring of retail change. None of those approaches is found to be entirely satisfactory, and a series of combination theories has been posited. It is argued that regional institutional change is the result of environmental forces and a cycle‐like sequence of inter‐institutional conflict.

Moral philosophers and marketing ethicists generally agree that variations in moral judgements exist between different cultures. Compares American marketers with Thai marketers with respect to their moral philoso‐phies, ethical perceptions, and ethical judgements. The results based on a survey of members of the American Marketing Association and the Thai Marketing Association indicate that American marketers are both less idealistic and less relativistic than Thai marketers. In addition, the survey results reveal that American marketers differ from Thai marketers with respect to their perceptions of ethical problems, and ethical judgements.

The purpose of this paper is to rethink the historical emergence of relationship marketing using the work of an early economics writer.

The approach of the paper is a historical review.

It is demonstrated that Eddy's major publication, The New Competition, articulates an argument central to relationship marketing, in terms of the value accorded to inter‐firm relationships. In doing so, this paper extends the work of Keep et al. on relationship marketing and Hollander's own reflection on the nature of competition.

Commensurate with studies that explore the “dark‐side” of relationship marketing, this paper shows how close organizational relations do not necessarily increase the efficiency of the market.

This paper undermines the argument that relationship marketing emerged in the 1970s. It thereby adds further weight to the idea that relationship marketing is not a new paradigm in marketing theory or business practice.