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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 20 June 2023

Teresa Heath and Caroline Tynan

The purpose of this study is to examine the potential of integrating material from the arts into postgraduate curricula to deepen students’ engagement with marketing phenomena…

1006

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the potential of integrating material from the arts into postgraduate curricula to deepen students’ engagement with marketing phenomena. The authors assess the use of arts-based activities, within a broader critical pedagogy, for encouraging imaginative and analytical thinking.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors devised two learning activities and an interpretive method for studying their value. The activities were an individual essay connecting themes in song lyrics to marketing, and a group photography project. These were applied, within a broader, critical approach, in postgraduate modules on sustainability, ethics and critical marketing. Data collection comprised diaries kept by the teachers, open-ended feedback from students and students’ assignments.

Findings

Students showed high levels of engagement, reflexivity and depth of thought, in felt experiences of learning. Their ability to make connections not explicitly in the materials, and requiring imaginative jumps, was notable. Several reported lasting changes to their behaviour. Some found the tasks initially intimidating or, once they were more engaged, stressful or saddening.

Research limitations/implications

This adds to scholarship on management education by showing the usefulness of an arts-based approach towards a transformative agenda.

Practical implications

It offers a template of how to draw from the arts to strengthen critical engagement upon which marketing teachers can build. It also contains practical advice on the challenges and benefits of doing so.

Social implications

The authors provide evidence that this approach can enhance sensitivity and reflexivity in students, potentially producing more ethical and sustainable decisions in future.

Originality/value

The pedagogical interventions are novel and of value to lecturers seeking to enhance critical engagement with theory. An empirical study of an attempt to integrate arts into teaching marketing represents a promising direction, given the discipline’s creative nature.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 57 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 November 2011

Mark Tadajewski

This paper calls attention to the importance of historical research within “critical marketing studies”. It seeks to articulate a historical perspective based on the work of…

1026

Abstract

Purpose

This paper calls attention to the importance of historical research within “critical marketing studies”. It seeks to articulate a historical perspective based on the work of Michel Foucault.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on a close reading of relevant Foucaultian primary and secondary texts.

Findings

Foucault's scholarship provides a useful counterpoint to the calls for critical theory to form the central paradigm in critical marketing studies, revealing a complex constellation of power/knowledge relations underpinning marketing theory, thought and pedagogy.

Originality/value

This is a close reading and examination of a theoretically sophisticated, rigorous scholar who remains largely underexplored in relation to marketing theory and the history of marketing thought.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 3 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 July 2011

Ross Gordon

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and role of the critical dimension social marketing and its place within marketing scholarly thought. It is posited that such…

9671

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and role of the critical dimension social marketing and its place within marketing scholarly thought. It is posited that such activity can be defined as “critical social marketing” and a formal definition is offered.

Design/methodology/approach

The ability of critical social marketing to inform the research and evidence base, as well as upstream and downstream activity is discussed. Scholarly debate on the role of critical social marketing within the social marketing and critical marketing paradigms, both of which heavily inform the concept, are reviewed. The application of a critical social marketing framework to the study of the impact of tobacco and food marketing is examined.

Findings

The paper demonstrates the utility of a critical social marketing framework in real‐world environments. Important considerations on who critical social marketers are and where the concept is located within marketing thought are addressed. The paper concludes by arguing that critical social marketing is a valid and established sub‐set of marketing thought within its own right, and should henceforth be regarded as such.

Originality/value

Offering a definition of critical social marketing formalises its position within marketing thought. Discussing the tensions surrounding the critical dimension of social marketing within the social marketing and critical marketing paradigms demonstrates the difficulty in locating concepts within existing literature. A review of the application of critical social marketing demonstrates its validity. Positing that critical social marketing should be located as a sub‐set within social marketing contributes to the marketing discipline and the organisation of marketing ideas and concepts.

Details

Journal of Social Marketing, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-6763

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 1999

Miriam Catterall, Pauline Maclaran and Lorna Stevens

Critical marketing studies are currently on the margins of the discipline, and the ideas and challenges to conventional marketing thought posed by these critiques are rarely…

3020

Abstract

Critical marketing studies are currently on the margins of the discipline, and the ideas and challenges to conventional marketing thought posed by these critiques are rarely examined in the marketing classroom. Drawing largely from debates in the management literature, discusses the problems and considers the possibilities of integrating critical reflection into the marketing curriculum.

Details

Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 17 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-4503

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2012

Mark Tadajewski

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the function of history in critical marketing studies centres on the issue of contextualisation. It aims to put forward the idea that…

1320

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the function of history in critical marketing studies centres on the issue of contextualisation. It aims to put forward the idea that historically informed critical marketing studies highlight that key institutions, actors and scholarly writings have all helped to constitute, perform and destabilise marketing theory, thought and practice in ways that reflect multiple constellations of interests.

Design/methodology/approach

By way of an engagement with various strands of the literature, it is suggested that the history of marketing thought and marketing history are riven with power relations. They include economically derived power relations and culturally significant changes in the social environment. However, while important, they are only part of a more pluralistic tapestry of factors that come from sometimes completely unrelated areas that helped constitute the conditions which fostered a given area of inquiry, debate and so on, in marketing and consumer research.

Findings

Weaved into accounts such as those articulated within critical marketing studies are attempts to rethink aspects of theory, concept formation, thought, practice and institutions that have assumed a taken‐for‐granted status.

Originality/value

This account is based on a detailed reading of interdisciplinary debates read into the history of marketing thought and marketing history.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 4 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 April 2013

Ming Lim and Peter Svensson

The role of the university as a site of social, cultural and political critique appears to be in terminal decline with the inexorable “commodification” of the university in the UK…

Abstract

Purpose

The role of the university as a site of social, cultural and political critique appears to be in terminal decline with the inexorable “commodification” of the university in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Yet, although scholars have identified the dangers of such a scenario, few attempts have been made to offer a pragmatic solution to preserve, or even rejuvenate, the university as an agent of critique. This paper proposes that a critical marketing education can take over this role in the academy where traditional critical agents like the arts and humanities are widely acknowledged to have failed.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a historical‐critical approach, and conceives of “critique” as a heterogeneous, multidimensional amalgam of both business and the humanities.

Findings

The paper shows how a critical marketing education offers a pragmatic means of preparing university students to become active and critical voices of society.

Originality/value

Few attempts have been made to offer a pragmatic solution to preserve, or even rejuvenate, the university as an agent of critique. This paper proposes that a critical marketing education can take over this role in the academy.

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 5 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 February 2007

Per Skålén and Martin Fougère

Marketing “from the intra‐organizational perspective” has been comparatively untouched by the critical turn in organization studies. The objective of the present paper is to…

3317

Abstract

Purpose

Marketing “from the intra‐organizational perspective” has been comparatively untouched by the critical turn in organization studies. The objective of the present paper is to contribute to a critical examination of marketing as a change discourse by focusing on service management scholarship. In particular, the paper focuses upon the gap‐model.

Design/methodology/approach

Foucault's disciplinary power concept is used to analyze how the gap‐model tends to objectify, subjectify and normalize.

Findings

Focusing on service management contributes to the scarce critical examination of marketing in general and the almost non‐existent critical examination of service management in particular. Further, the paper contributes to the investigation of the potential production of subjectivity and normalization as an effect of marketing technologies.

Research limitations/implications

This paper suggests empirical exploration of subjective responses to marketing discourse and associated technologies.

Originality/value

Critical examinations of marketing discourse in general, and service management in particular, are very scarce. Specifically, the paper contributes to the understanding of how service management intends to fixate the subject.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 June 2020

Martina Hutton and Teresa Heath

This paper aims to provoke a conversation in marketing scholarship about the overlooked political nature of doing research, particularly for those who research issues of social…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provoke a conversation in marketing scholarship about the overlooked political nature of doing research, particularly for those who research issues of social (in)justice. It suggests a paradigmatic shift in how researchers might view and operationalise social justice work in marketing. Emancipatory praxis framework offers scholars an alternative way to think about the methodology, design and politics of researching issues of social relevance.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper drawing on critical theory to argue for a new methodological shift towards emancipatory praxis.

Findings

As social justice research involves a dialectical relationship between crises and critique, the concept of emancipation acts as a methodological catalyst for furthering debate about social (in)justice in marketing. This paper identifies a set of methodological troubles and challenges that may disrupt the boundaries of knowledge-making. A set of methodological responses to these issues illustrating how emancipatory research facilitates social action is outlined.

Research limitations/implications

Emancipatory praxis offers marketing scholars an alternative methodological direction in the hope that more impactful and useful ways of knowing can emerge.

Practical implications

The paper is intended to change the ways that researchers work in practical and concrete terms on issues of social (in)justice.

Social implications

Although this paper is theoretical, it argues for an alternative methodological approach to research that reorients researchers towards a politicised praxis with emancipatory relevancy.

Originality/value

Emancipatory praxis offers a new openly politicised methodological alternative for addressing problems of social relevance in marketing. As a continuous political and emancipatory task for researchers, social justice research involves empirical encounters with politics, advocacy and democratic participation, where equality is the methodological starting point for research design and decisions as much as it is the end goal.

Book part
Publication date: 24 September 2018

Antoinette Fage-Butler

Sleep apps installed on smartphones are increasingly being used to help people overcome sleep problems. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the discourses that underpin…

Abstract

Sleep apps installed on smartphones are increasingly being used to help people overcome sleep problems. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the discourses that underpin discursive constructions of the potential sleep app user in sleep app marketing communication. According to critical marketing theory, discursive constructions of the potential consumer in marketing communication promote the potential consumer’s identification and alignment, priming the potential consumer to consider positively the product being marketed. In that sense, marketing (of sleep apps, or indeed anything) is culturally significant, as it provides templates for forms of identity, and affects the meanings and objects that circulate within a culture.

A data set consisting of the promotional material that was used to market acclaimed sleep apps was analysed using Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA). The following discourses were identified in the data: disempowerment, pathologisation, ignorance, behaviourism, responsibilisation, mindfulness, seduction, convenience or common sense, empowerment and individualisation. These discourses indicate how sleep apps are legitimised as technical appendages to be installed into people’s phones and integrated into their lives. They also underpin the discursive identities that summon potential consumers into alignment. This chapter contributes to our understandings of the discursive mechanisms that lie behind the growing uptake of sleep apps. It also demonstrates the value of combining discourse analysis with relevant critical theory to gain insights into the emerging phenomenon of app culture.

Article
Publication date: 10 April 2017

William Bellew, Adrian Bauman, Becky Freeman and James Kite

Conceptual advancement underpins the progress of social marketing and countermarketing research but has been neglected in recent years. This paper aims to describe a new…

Abstract

Purpose

Conceptual advancement underpins the progress of social marketing and countermarketing research but has been neglected in recent years. This paper aims to describe a new integrative framework of social countermarketing (SCM) concepts, techniques and defining characteristics, based on research tracing the conceptual evolution of the field and contrasting commercial (profit-focused) and social (public good-focused) countermarketing.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper undertook searches of electronic databases to examine how socially oriented countermarketing has been characterised in the research literature. Search terms included “countermarketing”, “critical marketing”, “de-marketing” and “counter-advertising”. Broad inclusion criteria allowed consideration of reports, conference and media outputs, as well as peer-reviewed articles published since 1971. Selected marketing journals were searched individually.

Findings

After screening of 408 initial search results, 80 studies were retained and full papers retrieved. Main ideas, definitions, scope, concepts and terms used were mapped to identify the common and distinguishing features, as well as higher-order organising themes. This led to the development of a new conceptual framework for SCM comprising eight domains.

Research limitations/implications

The integrative conceptual framework offers a foundation for future research and SCM practice.

Originality/value

This paper introduces a framework designed to advance the conceptual basis of SCM research and practice with particular reference to the field of public health and disease prevention.

Details

Journal of Social Marketing, vol. 7 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-6763

Keywords

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