The Roots and Uses of Marketing Knowledge

A Critical Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Marketing

Terry Smith

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783110631890
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing Research
• Index: Business

Marketing theory is often developed in isolation not collaboration; theoretical perspectives sometimes are ignorant of the diversity of marketing practice. In "The roots and uses of marketing knowledge: a critical inquiry into the theory and practice of marketing", the author engages with the vital conversation about how marketing knowledge is created, disseminated and consumed, looking beyond the traditional reification of practice in theory and verification of theory in practice.

The ontology of this work is anchored in subjective individual meaning; the epistemological stance assumes that this meaning is socially constructed. Consequently, rich empirical data, grounded in the context of experiential evidence, is extracted from a comprehensive range of marketing constituencies: academics, practitioners, managers, consultants, authors, lecturers and students.

In its examination of the polarities, hybridity and iterative flow of marketing knowledge creation and consumption, this text posits a cohesive argument for a theory/practice bipartite fusion not dichotomy, adding valuable insights into the textual, contextual and pedagogical representations of marketing knowledge.

The history and future of marketing knowledge is examined with the aid of instructive illustrations and insightful first-hand experience. Drawing on extensive qualitative research from a broad range of influential producers and vital consumers, Dr. Smith presents a relevant, exciting marketing knowledge framework which will be a vital resource for academics, students and practitioners.

Part 1:Foundations of Knowledge

Introduction to Part 1: Foundations of Knowledge

As a necessary extended pre-amble to Part 2, the purpose of Part 1 is to analyse what may constitute knowledge, examining the philosophical foundations within which the research inquiry can be framed, discussing the key knowledge relationships in marketing, and considering the alternative approaches from which a suitable methodology can be constructed. Drawing on extensive secondary research on the epistemological origins and ontological roots of knowledge, as well subject-specific marketing literature, this helps to “contextualise the background, identify knowledge gaps, avoid conceptual and methodological pitfalls of previous research, and provide a rationale for the study” (Giles et al., 2013: 39).

Chapter 2, Philosophical underpinnings of the inquiry, features an extensive literature review analysing the roots and nature of knowledge, together with a strategic overview and thorough assessment of extant marketing knowledge in both theoretical and practical domains. Theory directly related to empirical findings is integrated in Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Chapter 3, Knowledge relationships in marketing, traces theoretical and contextual origins, together with the discourses within which the battle for academic hegemony in establishing the ‘normative model’ has taken place.

Chapter 4, Methodological approaches to inquiry into marketing knowledge, provides an in-depth review of the possible methodological direction and a justification for the one selected as most appropriate for this inquiry.

For ease of understanding, Figure 1.2 describes visually the microstructure of the following section.

Figure 1.2: Micro Structure of Part 1.

1Introduction

1.1Outline of chapter

Whilst this chapter is prefatory to the substance of the content, it will also provide essential context and dynamic to its discussion: to delineate the origins and key dynamics of this inquiry which is to investigate the “the meaning of social action in the context of the life-world and from the actors’ perspective” (de Gialdino, 1992: 43). The focus in the title of this text – the roots and uses of marketing knowledge – is purposively in the plural as there are many ways in which knowledge is used: functionally, practically, philosophically, pedagogically, as utility, symbolically, as a source of power, identity, even egotistically.

The value of knowledge, and indeed how knowledge is consumed, is a principal epistemological quality and consideration. The epistemological stance of this inquiry assumes that meaning is socially constructed, grounded in context; the scope of the ontological investigation covers different types of marketing knowledge as well as different types of marketing constituents and explores that subjective individual meaning. However, in the tradition of hermeneutic inquiry, this is a mereological approach, in the sense that the parts (types of knowledge and types of constituents) are examined in relation to the whole: the macro perspective aided by the micro contextual insights. Consequently, rich empirical data extracted from a comprehensive range of marketing constituencies – academics, practitioners, managers, consultants, authors, lecturers and students – are analysed in the interpretive paradigm using a phenomenological methodology with grounded theory data capture and thematic analysis.

In its examination of the polarities, hybridity and iterative flow of marketing knowledge creation and consumption, the framework which has evolved presents a unique perspective on the ideologically-driven power relations implicit in the theory/practice dichotomy debate. In place of duality, this new scholarly structure, and its accompanying argument, adds valuable insights into the theoretical, practical and pedagogical representation of marketing and introduces a feasible, holistic perspective created in marketing praxis which posits a cohesive argument for a theory/practice bipartite fusion not dichotomy.

1.2Brief introduction

Lewin’s famous (1951: 169) aperçu “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” (sic) locates the source of knowledge as directly traceable to academe and targeted squarely at the context of practice. In marketing, theory often reflects the contextual dynamics of the marketplace: knowledge in practice is reified in theory; theory is verified in practice. It is a performative science where theory and practice often can’t be separated – the discipline-knowledge from the discipline-control – since it “simultaneously describes and constructs its subject matter [. . .] and arises in and through unified discourse” as Cochoy (1998: 196) argues. But not always. Sometimes there is synergy; sometime there is separation. Theoretical marketing perspectives, where theory is often developed in isolation not collaboration, are sometimes ignorant of the diversity of marketing practice, evident in “the micro-discourses and narratives that marketing actors draw upon to represent their work” (Ardley and Quinn, 2014: 97). Indeed, the distanced relationship between academics and practitioners – purely theoretical observation – can be what Triana (2009) describes as “lecturing birds on flying”. The separation gap is somewhere in the spaces between theoretical rigidity ‘in aspic’ and empirical dynamism ‘in situ’, between rigour and relevance, and between a posteriori and a priori knowledge (Smith et al., 2015: 1029). And yet, discussion of theoretical and empirical marketing knowledge – marketing theory and marketing practice in text or context – is often interstitial intelligence in the sense that knowledge occurs in between these two oppositional epistemes.

It was Aristotle who separated theory and practice, distinguishing thinking and doing. But can there be practice without a theory of practice? Isn’t thinking a form of practice in itself? It is also sometimes a hybrid of the two: a “synthetic and magpie approach” as Sim and van Loom (2004) refer to it. Whilst there may not be a perfect fusion between empirical and philosophical evaluations of marketing, the synthesis of theory and practice – praxis – offers a perspective approaching a rapprochement. Praxis, according to Heilman, (2003: 274) can be described as “a synthetic product of the dialectic between theory and practice”. Consequently, marketing knowledge is a product of marketplace dynamics, theoretical observation and speculation, as well as a mixture of both. Practice often has tacit knowledge which is not expressed as theory; theory often has explicit knowledge not related to practice. This is exactly the locus and, indeed, the focus of this book: an emic and etic inquiry into the roots and uses of marketing knowledge.

The nexus of this inquiry, therefore, is the perennial dichotomy between theory and practice, something which Baker (2001: 24) points out “existed long before the subject of marketing became accepted as an academic discipline in its own right”. Indeed, discussion on the theory/practice conundrum has been going on for some considerable time now. Marketing evidences a chimerical confusion of disparate yet connected narratives: as a key social phenomenon; a prescriptive managerial framework; and as a subject for intense pedagogical scrutiny. Whether business practice, applied discipline or social institution, marketing is characterised by reciprocity, inter-relatedness, and symbolic symbiosis. It is often presented as a meta-narrative, ‘a narrative about narratives’ (Hunt, 1994). It is the intention of this text to analyse and integrate these divergent and convergent strands by presenting all of these narratives: empirical, theoretical and pedagogical.

1.3Origins of the research

Marketing has been described as a triad of philosophy, method and function (Morgan, 1996: 19), but it is often difficult to determine whether the source or sources of marketing knowledge are experiential or theoretical. Although the need for a posteriori ‘theory’ based on scientific principles defines ‘marketing’ as a philosophy more than just a mere activity, prior to the theory development of marketing progressed by Jones, Fish and Hagerty between 1900–1910, it was viewed as solely an applied, practical phenomenon. Bartels (1970: 33) captures this perfectly: “Marketing was a discovery since ‘marketing is recognised as an idea and not just an activity [. . .] . Before the idea was created, the term ‘marketing’ was applied, the simple task had just been called ‘trade’, ‘distribution’ or ‘exchange’ [. . .]”. And whilst it is, as Hackley (2009: 643) observes, “a bifurcated discipline occupying two parallel universes”, marketing is after all a discursive, integrative discipline of circular, reiterative knowledge production, often located in the situated learning or praxis of the practitioner, often in the reductionist notions of the academic. Yet despite its synthetic and integrative nature, it is a composite of constituencies and constitutive elements, exposed to exogenous economic, social and even political influences (Tadajewski and Saren, 2008), and characterised by endogenous factional rather than collegiate concerns. Mittlelstaedt (1990) recognises its ‘magpie’ nature; Hackley (2001) identifies its ‘anthropological turn’; others critique its Western world view fixation (Gould, 1991; Jack, 2008) and monotheist managerialism (Brown, 1995).

Chote (1999) railed against the myopia of this ‘essentialist’ academic approach claiming that it is “analysing real world behaviour in ways that are theoretically defensible but palpably absurd”. Hollander’s (1989) delineation of practice not being entirely bereft of thought and thought as being often driven by practice identifies the crux of the matter. Two extreme approaches in the search for ‘knowledge’ – rationalism and empiricism – mark out the epistemological territory of this inquiry. Rationalism claims that there is an a priori existence of knowledge which is intrinsically objective and can be obtained deductively. Empiricism argues for a posteriori knowledge derived inductively from experience. Used as both a verb and a noun, marketing has roots in both rational and irrational domains: the orthodox economist’s obsession with perfect market equilibrium in virtual markets set against the sociologist’s perspective of socially constructed meaning. It is not just about supply and demand. Nor is it just about its social nature. It is both.

Recently, research on preventing marketing from becoming marginalised and giving it legitimacy in business argues that there should be a closer integration of marketing theory and practice (Baker and Holt, 2004: 564). Under the auspices of the Research Excellence Framework (née REA), the evaluation of the impact of research relevance in Higher Education describes ‘impact’ as “any effect, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia” (REF, 2017). Whilst this warns that research should not be confined to the ‘ivory towers’ of the educational institution, it also infers a separation between theory and practice and yet suggests that there has to be a connection to context. A distinction should be made here between ‘context-specific’ knowledge (linked to improving business performance) and ‘context-free’ knowledge (abstract theorising). According to Hyman and Tansey (1992: 1), “Context-bound theorists assume that the historian’s traditional premise that human events are unique phenomena and the historical sociologist’s premise that history is composed of both unique events and evolving patterns of behaviour”. Of course, this chimes perfectly well with the nature of this inquiry. The “time - and context-specific nature of interpretive research” (Hudson and Ozanne, 1988: 513) makes the contextual detail the theory (Laughlin, 1995: 67). In this sense, ‘theory’ is a narrative that explains how researchers and research participants construct their worlds and the relationship between certain events and actions. Here, theory is seen more as a process that involves deriving situation-relative insights that might result in analytical abstractions from the study of data-rich research contexts. The theory-practice link in this case is more complex than for positivistic research; some interpretive scholars argue that this type of research can provide managerially useful insights (Elliott and Jankel-Elliott, 2003), while others make a case for this ‘scientific style’ (Hirschman, 1985) to consider consumption research as...