Search results

The study aims examine the popular master narrative that marketing education in Britain first appeared in the 1960s and understand if its origins can in fact be traced to an earlier period. This is undertaken through an examination of the courses taught from 1902 to 1969 at the Faculty of Commerce, University of Birmingham, Great Britain.

The study draws on a number of primary source materials held at the archives at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham, that are related to the Faculty of Commerce.

The study identifies that marketing courses were being taught in Britain long before the 1960s by the new business schools; we can trace its origins to the beginning of the twentieth century at Birmingham. From 1902 onwards, marketing was consistently part of the syllabus of the undergraduate programme and it became part of the core syllabus of the post-graduate programme.

The findings of the study require marketing education scholars and scholars of the emergence of marketing thought to revise their beliefs concerning the emergence of marketing education in Great Britain and situate this in an earlier period.

The paper demonstrates the historical value of studying early commerce syllabi and the manner in which marketing-themed content was delivered to students.

The purpose of this paper is to document contributions to the early study and teaching of marketing at one of the first universities in Britain to do so and, in that way, to contribute to the literature about the history of marketing thought. Given that the first university business program in Britain was started in 1902, at about the same time as the earliest business programs in America, the more specific purpose of this paper was to explore whether or not the same influences were shared by pioneer marketing educators on both sides of the Atlantic.

An historical method is used including a biographical approach. Primary source materials included unpublished correspondence (letterbooks), lecture notes, seminar minute-books, course syllabi and exams, minutes of senate and faculty meetings, university calendars and other unpublished documents in the William James Ashley Papers at the University of Birmingham.

The contributions of William James Ashley and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham to the early twentieth-century study and teaching of marketing are documented. Drawing from influences similar to those on pioneer American marketing scholars, Ashley used an historical, inductive, descriptive approach to study and teach marketing as part of what he called “business economics”. Beginning in 1902, Ashley taught his students about a relatively wide range of marketing strategy decisions focusing mostly on channels of distribution and the functions performed by channel intermediaries. His teaching and the research of his students share much with the early twentieth-century commodity, institutional and functional approaches that dominated American marketing thought.

William James Ashley was only one scholar and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham was only one, although widely acknowledged as the first, of a few early twentieth-century British university programs in business. This justifies future research into the possible contributions to marketing knowledge made by other programs such as those at the University of Manchester (1903), University of Liverpool (1910) and University of London (1919).

This paper adds an important chapter to the history of marketing thought which has been dominated by American pioneer scholars, courses, literature and ideas.

The purpose of this paper is to review a popular business handbook – The Business Guide – by James L. Nichols, first published around the turn of the twentieth century. The analysis is geared toward determining how it fits within the development of marketing thought and education.

A review of the marketing history literature focusing on marketing thought, education and practice around the turn of the twentieth century is conducted. The content of The Business Guide is analyzed and compared with the themes reflected in the literature review.

Most editions appeared in the era just proceeding the emergence of marketing as distinct discipline. It is unlikely that it had any appreciable influence on the development of marketing thought. However, it was used as a textbook at North-Western College in Naperville, IL, and may have been at other early business education programs in the USA and Canada. Nichols’ treatment of marketing topics was consistent with the era. It reflected commodities and functional views. For him, marketing was primarily distribution along with advertising, pricing, product management and credit. Consistent with modern marketing philosophy, Nichols placed heavy emphasis on ethics.

Despite the fact that this book was published in multiple editions over several decades, it seems to have been largely forgotten. As far as is known, this paper is the only recent treatment of this historical artifact.

The paper aims to argue, while examining the history of marketing theory in India, that the discipline is ahistorical, serves large business interests and is shaped by hegemonic Western knowledge.

The primary sources of data were the marketing doctoral dissertations, working papers, teaching material and research publications produced in the top management schools in India from the 1960s up to the present period.

The historical review reveals that the marketing theory in India is characterized by dependence on the West and elision of the country’s rich business history. It further shows that the discipline in India focuses on research problems and issues which are more appropriate to a Western context, and remains detached from local realities. Moreover, the discipline is characterized by a narrow managerial orientation.

Findings from the paper will be of value to researchers who wish to understand the Indian marketing thought.

Findings from the paper will be of value to academics and policy makers who wish to create more independent and contextually informed and sensitive management programs.

The paper reveals the extent to which the education and institutions in India are influenced by the West, and aims to motivate academics and policy makers to understand local knowledge and ways of knowing.

The main contribution of this paper is to show that the marketing discipline in India has been ahistorical and is shaped by hegemonic Western knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for including historical perspectives in doctoral seminars in marketing theory.

The paper describes how marketing history is currently incorporated into the author's doctoral seminar in marketing theory.

The author's doctoral seminar in marketing theory incorporates history in three ways: the assignment of specific historical articles, the use of historically oriented, supplementary readings, and the use of history to examine specific controversies.

Rather than marketing history and marketing theory being competitors, they complement each other well in doctoral seminars.

This chapter provides an historical perspective on the evolution of educational marketing both as a professional field within the management and leadership of educational organisations and as a research field for academics and practitioners. It weaves together three important strands of analysis:•The evolution of the political, economic and social ideologies which have created the context in which marketisation of education has occurred.•The development of approaches to educational marketing in schools, colleges and universities.•The development of the research arena focused on marketisation and marketing in educational institutions.

The analysis considers the challenges that market-based concepts have brought to the existing hegemonies within both education and academic research, and also the politics and sociology of academic research. This provides a perspective on the challenges of developing a ‘new’ research field as a valid and significant area of study. The chapter concludes that educational marketing has evolved very significantly over the last 30 years, but has a done so in a context of substantial intellectual and sociological challenge. Resistance to its development has at times reflected resistance to the underlying concepts of marketisation rather than a concern that its approaches and findings are not important.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an unexplored part of advertising history; namely, the education of a large, mundane, nonelite group of advertising professionals, so-called advertising technicians and the knowledge they acquired. Examining correspondence courses in the technology of advertising, we focus particularly on the production of technified knowledge and mass personas.

The study is based on a qualitative analysis of course material from Sweden’s two largest correspondence schools in the 1930s and 1940s. Two theoretical concepts guide the analysis: the concept of market devices and the notion of personas, both of which we use to show how the courses crafted a particular kind of advertising professional as well as knowledge.

The study shows that courses created a template-based persona of the advertising technician, who possessed what we call bounded originality characterized by diligence, modesty and rule-governed creative imagination. Similarly, the courses created a body of knowledge that was controllable and highly practice-oriented. The advertising technician was expected to embody and internalize the advertising knowledge, thus, becoming an extension of this knowledge on the market.

By directing the searchlight at the cadre of ordinary, middle-class advertising professionals instead of the high-profile “advertising creatives” and innovators, the paper brings to the foreground the nonelite level of the advertising industry. These practitioners went to work in the business world to produce the everyday advertising that was not necessarily groundbreaking but was needed in a growing mass-consumption society.

This article seeks to bring two hitherto neglected Polish language texts on selling and salesmanship to the attention of marketing historians. In contrast to Bartels' seminal work, this research aims to show that early marketing writing was not just in the English language and that early marketing thought was disseminated via instruction outside institutions of higher education. The research also intends to explore how marketing education served to acculturate one group of immigrants to American business norms.

The primary sources are Sprzedawca czyli: Sztuka Prowadzenia Handlu Podług Systemów Amerykańskich (Salesman: The Art of Commerce According to American Norms) by Józef Mierzyński and Sprzedawnictwo Sklepowe (Store Salesmanship), third edition, by Bolesław Z. Urbanski. Both were published in Chicago. Their tables of contents were translated and compared to selected English language texts on selling and salesmanship written about the same time. Additional information on the authors, publishers, and potential audience was also gathered to give context to these texts.

These Polish language books contained much of the same information as the English language literature on sales from the period, but with more information on personal comportment and more illustrative material. These books provide evidence of sophisticated business thinking among some Polish immigrants. Commercial correspondence courses and self‐instruction brought early marketing thought to this market and thus helped Poles enter the American economic mainstream.

The article shows that these are the first books on selling and salesmanship – or on any other marketing topic – known to be written in the USA prior to 1920 in a language other than English. They are worthy of close scrutiny because they reveal a new dimension to the early creation and dissemination of marketing thought.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the early days of marketing education by observing the first “Marketing” subject in Australia, which was taught at the University of Melbourne, and comparing elements of the early subject to the introductory Marketing subject of today.

The information used for this study was obtained from material in the University of Melbourne Archives, including calendar entries, subject descriptions, and university announcements, as well as from interviews and correspondence with various people including those in academic and administrative positions, and former students.

The origins of university-level marketing education in Australia can be seen to have been shaped by several influences, including: the external environment of the country at that time; the areas of interest of academic staff; the availability of teaching material – textbooks, academic articles, appropriate case studies, academic research papers, etc.; the academic staff and teaching materials from the USA; and the extent to which the supporting technology of marketing had changed.

By observing the development in marketing education over the years, from its beginnings in Australia at the University of Melbourne, this paper shows changes in the content which assists in the understanding of what has led to how marketing is taught in Australasian universities and colleges today.

Marketing education research usually focusses on what is happening at the moment, so the value of this study is that it is one of the few that looks at marketing education from a historical perspective.