Eventalizing the marketing concept

This paper “eventalizes” the marketing concept and in doing so will highlight the value of detailed cross-source analysis in historical research. But more than this, it will not simply call upon canonical sources in relation to debates surrounding the marketing concept for the reason that non-canonical sources – that is, periodical material or out-of-print texts that very few people have read or have acknowledged as central contributions to the field – may contain references to debates that have long been written out of the historical record and could encourage us, as marketing scholars, to adopt a more sceptical stance toward what we take for granted historically and neglect to subject to critical scrutiny. This argument is illustrated via the demonstration that marketing scholars and practitioners were well aware of the benefits that accrue from a customer orientation and were encouraged to orient their organisations in this manner by the growth in industrial production facilities stimulated by World War I. This growth meant that production output could be maintained at levels far in excess of consumer demand, thereby necessitating that organisations register and act upon consumer requirements. These themes continue to gain prominence until World War II when there was a brief return to a production orientation. At this point, business and marketing practitioners adopted a critical stance with regard to certain types of consumer research. There are multiple reasons for this. Firstly, the U.S. government became the major purchaser of industrial and consumer goods. Secondly, business practitioners were sceptical of the value of market and consumer research as a result of the failure by pollsters (who were utilising sophisticated statistical techniques) to predict the outcome of the 1948 U.S. Presidential election. Given the conflation of market research with polling research in the popular press and business community, business practitioners were unsure about the validity and usefulness of market research. In equal measure, environmental factors including rising levels of competition, employee specialisation, product diversification and organisational decentralisation would contribute to the (re)emergence of themes associated with the marketing concept.     

Branded lives: The production and consumption of meaning at work

Over the last number of decades, as a result of regulatory, technological and changing consumer dynamics, many service organisations operate in an increasingly competitive and dynamic external environment. These changes have led to service companies trying to both recruit and retain profitable customers. In order to compete effectively, do companies focus on transaction and relationship marketing activities only or on the balanced delivery of both? Apart from a small body of work (Brodie et al. 1997; Coviello et al. 1997; 2002), the literature has treated transaction and relationship marketing in an isolated and non-integrated fashion. In particular there has been limited consideration of the pertinent issues facing service organisations trying to integrate these two perspectives in practice. This article describes an in-depth study of a service organisation's transaction and relationship marketing activities. In this study theory was used in the development of a conceptual model. This model was used as a framework to guide the study and data collection using one retail bank case. The data were analysed in relation to the transaction and relationship marketing focus and activities of the bank. The findings indicate that resource investment in some aspects of transaction and relationship marketing activities, in practice, was unbalanced compared to the resource investment in a wide range of support activities. The study has implications for research and theory and to those attempting to deliver both transaction and relationship marketing in the context of dynamic and competitive environments.     

Marketing as Cooking: The Return of the Sophists

This literature-based paper is concerned with the range of marketing in general and the world of marketing practice in particular. It notes the ahistorical nature of much reflection on marketing, shifts to the characteristics of modern marketing management and then turns to the Ancients. The emergence and subsequent ebb and flow of rhetoric are covered briefly and then the case is argued that rhetoric should be a core concept for understanding and enhancing marketing practice. The location of rhetoric in the critical literature is acknowledged but the primary knowledge claim is that rhetoric as a framing device and as an instrument for managerial action is central to a full appreciation of marketing reality.     

Individualism-Collectivism Cultural Differences Affecting Perceptions of Unethical Practices: Some Evidence from Australian and Indonesian Accounting Students

This paper examines the impact of the individualism-collectivism dimension of culture on ethical perceptions in a sample of Australian and Indonesian Final Year accounting students. The study uses the Triandis instrument to establish that Australian students tended to be more individualistically- and Indonesian students more collectivistically-oriented. The study then proceeds to test the hypothesis of no difference in perceptions between these two country samples in their evaluations of questionable actions portrayed in five vignette situations. The findings reject the no difference cultural hypothesis, indicating that there are perceptual differences between the collectivistic Indonesian students and the individualistic Australian students. In general Indonesian students tend to perceive a lesser degree of risk for the questionable acts depicted by these cases where such acts would have beneficial impacts on close or moderately close in-groups. Consistent with this observation, they also tend to perceive a greater amount of gain if this gain impacts more on close or moderately close in-groups.These results suggest that ethics teaching, either as separate or integrated into other courses, is a delicate subject that is even more critical in a multicultural environment such as Australia where universities have growing numbers of culturally-distinct Asian students. Australian-based teachers of accounting students, in particular, should exercise extreme sensitivity when addressing issues of ethical conduct in the classroom to avoid offending those from different cultural backgrounds. More research into experiences of teaching business ethics to a group of culturally diverse students, as well as publications of suitable teaching materials that highlight and address these problems would be a significant step forward.     

Marketing the Police – from a Force to a Service

The British police service is a highly visible public sector organisation that in recent years has come under mounting pressures from different stakeholders, including successive Conservative and Labour governments and also an increasingly demanding public. In this setting, various business and management models and concepts have been applied to contemporary policing, but only limited research has been undertaken to date on how marketing has been adopted and utilised across the police forces of the British Isles. This paper explores the context of modern policing and suggests why the police are now being compelled to address marketing more seriously than hitherto. It draws on recent empirical work conducted across the police service and situates this within the existing literature on internal marketing. The paper concludes that marketing is underdeveloped across the police service and argues that police forces should develop their internal marketing as a precursor to successful external marketing.     

The Role of Perceptions in Predicting Donor Value

Explores the role of donor perceptions in predicting the value of a donor, both to the voluntary sector as a whole and to specific organisations. Three classes of perceptual variable are examined; perceptions of the performance of the voluntary sector/specific organisations, perceptions of any exchange benefits that might accrue and in cases where a relationship already exists, perceptions of the quality of service quality provided. Drawing on results of an empirical study of 5000 donors to ten large national charities, the paper concludes that all three classes of perceptual variable have the capacity to influence donor value.     

Marketing Accounting Services in the U.S. and Norway

Abstract

This study compares the general perceptions of marketing and the marketing experiences and training by accountants in the United States and Norway. The results of this study indicate there are differences in perceptions of marketing held by accountants in the U.S. and Norway and in their marketing practices. Accountants in the U.S. held stronger opinions on the importance of marketing accounting services, whereas accountants in Norway believed more strongly that reputation for quality work was more important than marketing. Over two-thirds of Norway accountants reported they did not use marketing concepts in their practice while over half of U.S. accountants indicated they did. A majority of Norway accountants indicated they did not need marketing because their clients come to them when they need their services. These findings demonstrate the importance of being cognizant of the differences in marketing professional services as accountants expand their understanding of global business and accounting practices.     

Some Attitudinal Predictors of Home-Shopping through the Internet

Economic and political imperatives of the 1980s have seen governments turn to private sector managerial techniques, practices and orientations to enable them to deliver services more efficiently and effectively. Among these is marketing which has received increasing attention as governments have looked to privatize, corporatize or simply introduce some level of “user‐pays” principle into their operations.

Despite the ambitious claims of the marketing discipline, the transposition of marketing to the public sector has not proved to be without problems. This paper reviews why such a transposition might be difficult. It also reviews the claim of marketing to be an appropriate discipline at all for widespread application in the public sector.

The paper concludes that marketers should be cautious as to the extent to which their discipline can be transposed or modified to assist governments identity, plan, deliver and evaluate services more efficiently and effectively.     

(Mis)trust in marketing: a reflection on consumers' attitudes and perceptions

Consumers are at the focal point of marketers' attention. However, while extensive research is devoted to understanding consumers' motivations, attitudes and behaviour, surprisingly little attention is given to the consumers' views of marketing itself. This paper explores consumers' attitudes towards marketing and their perceptions of it, reflecting critically upon their views. Since much criticism of marketing focuses on its role in promoting consumption, we also consider perceptions of current levels of consumption and the extent to which marketing is held responsible for them. Based on 29 in-depth interviews we find evidence suggesting the prevalence of negative attitudes towards marketing, especially associated with deceptive or dishonest campaigns, although marketing's informative role is acknowledged. Importantly, findings reveal a limited understanding of the discipline, suggesting a gap between the concept of marketing and consumers' perceptions of it. This paper sends marketers important messages from consumers and offers grounds for further debate.     

Mapping out the Field of Gender and Buyer-Seller Relationships: Developing a New Perspective

Buyer-seller relationships have long been of intense interest to marketing academics and practitioners, most particularly within the domain of business-to-business markets, but also more recently within the purview of business-to-consumer markets. This paper looks at the role of gender in buyer-seller relationships. Covering the literature from sales and from consumer behaviour, the general lack of a specific gender perspective in the interactions between buyers and sellers is identified and weaknesses in the current literature are highlighted. It identifies an opportunity to develop and apply feminist research practice to this increasingly important area. The benefits, opportunities, and limitations of the feminist research approach are specified and some initial conclusions presented.     

The future of marketing: brightest star in the firmament,or a fading meteor? Some hypotheses and a research agenda

Excellent marketing has always emanated from a deep understanding of consumer needs and expectations, combined with their right to be informed, protected and their right to quality of life. Evidence for this fundamental bedrock of marketing is provided. The problem is that in 2009 "marketing" just doesn't mean "good marketing", or even "honest marketing" and is widely seen as "mismarketing" in practice, largely the result of marketing's demotion to promotion and puffery. Evidence is provided for this view. The paper then makes some suggestions about possible new initiatives/directions for the discipline. These are:

? the name marketing itself

? making the discipline truly professional

? making marketing fully accountable for its expenditure

The accountability issue, however, is, in the author's view, the principal way to rescue the discipline from demise, so the bulk of the paper concerns this issue and sets out an agenda for research.     

From Cattle and Coke to Charlie: Meeting the Challenge of Self Marketing and Personal Branding

Since the late 1990s, self marketing and personal branding have become increasingly popular as subjects of self-improvement books, Web sites and consultancy services, especially in the USA. To date, little of this interest appears to have permeated the discipline of marketing, either in terms of formal research, textbook contents or academic curricula. This paper examines the theoretical basis of self marketing and personal branding, identifies some of the conceptual, practical and ethical problems it poses for the discipline, and points to some of the challenges facing higher education in attempting to create a curricular framework within which marketing professionals can learn how to market and brand themselves effectively.     

关于灰色营销道德评价的一个初步调查

本文在调查的基础上分析了人们对灰色营销的道德评价问题。调查结果显示,人们对于推销中不同的灰色营销手段有不同的道德评价,且对某些有道德问题的营销行为并不反感;在道德评价上,人们对于推销人员的灰色营销行为的反感程度明显低于采购人员的灰色营销行为。文章认为,市场营销在中国的这种道德环境反映了中国传统文化对人们意识的深远影响,企业在制定市场营销道德规范时,要充分考虑这种实际环境,不提出过高的道德要求,要具体界定道德与不道德的行为,在理念上明辨是非,以提高员工的道德素质;从社会角度看,整治灰色营销行为,建立公平竞争环境,关键在于建立科学的采购制度,限制采购代理人的灰色营销行为。     

Perceptions of Indian business organizations toward formal marketing research

The results reported in this article are based on a mail survey of 219 firms in India. The major purpose of the study is to examine the marketing research experiences of Indian business firms and their perceptions about conducting formal marketing research. Results indicate that 45 percent of Indian firms have had some experience with formal marketing research and have positive perceptions concerning marketing research as an important decision making tool. Size and type of firm were found to influence whether formal marketing research is conducted. Research methodologies used in India are presented along with problems encountered by these practitioners.     

Cross-functional interface and disruption in CRM projects: Is marketing from Venus and information systems from Mars?

Because of the inherently cross-functional nature of customer relationship management, the use of cross-functional teams in CRM project implementations is virtually mandatory to achieve critical marketing and sales objectives. This study examines the effects of functional membership as well as team and individual performance evaluations on project members' perceptions of disruption and cooperation during CRM project implementations. The results show that IS project members are more likely to perceive internal volatility and manifest interfunctional conflict and less likely to perceive interfunctional cooperation than project members from either sales/marketing or general management. We also find that team performance evaluations are negatively associated with disruption and positively associated with cooperation, while individual evaluations are negatively associated with internal volatility.     

Book Reviews

In a world of limited resources, marketing managers tasked to deliver shareholder value face decisions about how to maximise the returns on their marketing portfolio. Risk is less often considered. In finance the picture is very different; financial portfolio management is concerned with both risk and returns. The central innovation in this paper is the application of modern portfolio theory (MPT) to the management of marketing portfolios in food retailing and in drinks manufacturing. The authors develop a model that calculates an efficient frontier of marketing portfolios that maximise overall return within certain risk constraints, first for a simple two-segment marketing world and then for a more realistic multi-segment portfolio. However, marketing portfolios differ from financial ones in the sense that the allocation of marketing spend affects the returns from the portfolio. Therefore, a second innovation, an extension of MPT to take account of marketing spend allocation decisions, has been developed. Using this model, marketers can determine the risk and the returns of marketing investments, helping them select an optimal portfolio. This would go some way to ensuring that marketing contributes to shareholder value creation, currently one of its major challenges.     

Drivers of sales and marketing collaboration in business-to-business selling organisations

This paper focuses on identifying and exploring the antecedents and consequences of collaboration between the sales and marketing functions within organisations and empirically tests the resulting model. There is evidence to show that collaborative sales and marketing functions have benefits to an organisation in terms of improved business performance, but many organisations have not yet achieved collaborative internal functions. The study identifies five antecedents to collaboration between sales and marketing and tests the proposition that greater collaboration between sales and marketing is linked to benefits in terms of improved business performance.     

No Space – New Blood and the Production of Brand Culture Colonies

This paper explores implications for marketing education curricula of developments in marketing practice. Research from a variety of sources is drawn together and suggests that many marketing graduates are not being well equipped for 'the new marketing'. Marketing curricula should be reconsidered with respect to the nature of the learning outcomes, skills and knowledge that are required by graduates. Specifically, a range of marketing research and information issues are raised, together with implications of the new marketing metrics and the nature of marketing's wider role (via alliances and partnerships) in Knowledge Management strategies. This is furthered by the need to revisit the marketing concept itself in terms of its wider social responsibilities.