The purpose of this paper is to describe the author’s serendipitous career and provide some lessons that might be of value to those pursuing the academic mission: teaching…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the author’s serendipitous career and provide some lessons that might be of value to those pursuing the academic mission: teaching, research and service.
Design/methodology/approach
The method involves primary sources; mainly the author’s CV to jog recall of events and dates, some of his articles and the teachings and writings of many others that influenced or inspired various aspects of the author’s career.
Findings
The author’s experiences affirm that to achieve any degree of success in the professoriate, in addition to having some talent it is also helpful to be lucky. There is a lot to navigate at a university. Opportunities exist at every turn, some noticed some missed. When recognized, be prepared. Being a professor is not what you do, it is who you are. Preparation for an academic career involves becoming a self-improvement project (essentially, a life-long student learning lessons). It requires developing expertise (preferably excellence) in some field of study, as well as resourcefulness, resilience and perseverance.
Originality/value
Each individual’s story is unique. The author’s path seems to have included more twists and turns than most. Consequently, he tried to highlight the experiences with lessons learned in most sections, some obvious some less so, which he expects (at least hopes) will prove valuable to future educators.
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The purpose of this paper is to construct a general theory of the marketing system that addresses the fundamental question: why do marketing systems occur, survive and grow?
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to construct a general theory of the marketing system that addresses the fundamental question: why do marketing systems occur, survive and grow?
Design/methodology/approach
The approach integrates the concepts and constructs contained in special and mid-range theories, scattered throughout the history of marketing thought, into a logically coherent set of propositions (including definitions, axioms, theorems, scientific laws, bridge laws and hypotheses) that comprise a general theory of the marketing system.
Findings
The theoretical answer to why marketing systems arise, survive and grow is because marketing systems offer the most efficient mechanism for supplying products and services that people demand, thereby increasing economic growth, compared to the opportunity costs of alternative methods of acquisition. Based on just two (of several) marketing efficiency theorems, if the input costs of trading decline (law of reduced transaction costs) and/or the output value increases (law of bulk transactions), then marketing system efficiency rises. This creates an upward spiraling cycle: increasing the extent of the market (law of market size), proliferating opportunities for increasing aggregate production efficiency (through the law of comparative advantage and the law of division of labor), thereby further proliferating opportunities for aggregate marketing system efficiency (e.g. law of central markets, law of marketing specialists), thus fueling further aggregate economic growth (until limited by the law of diminishing returns, the law of the minimum resource or the law of market size). An empirically testable central hypothesis is derived from the propositions: increasing aggregate marketing system efficiency provides both the necessary and sufficient conditions for increasing aggregate economic growth in a society.
Originality/value
The value of developing a general theory of the marketing system is to advance the marketing discipline as a social science. Additionally, a general theory is likely to enhance academic thinking, improve business practice and facilitate interaction among academicians and practitioners. Further, a general theory could also reduce disciplinary fragmentation, avoid identity confusion and lessen the credibility crisis in marketing, among others.
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The purpose of this paper is to show that forgotten classics, such as Melvin T. Copeland’s (1924) Principles of Merchandising, can still teach lessons to students of the history…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show that forgotten classics, such as Melvin T. Copeland’s (1924) Principles of Merchandising, can still teach lessons to students of the history of marketing thought.
Design/methodology/approach
The method involved using various key words on several internet search engines. The extensive internet search produced more than a dozen contemporaneous reviews and commentaries. Additionally, there was an intensive search through the histories of marketing thought literature. The extensive and intensive searches allowed a meta-analysis reexamining Copeland’s principles in light of future historical developments from the mid-1920s to the 21st century.
Findings
Historically, Copeland’s principles established the commodity school of marketing thought. (One of the three traditional approaches to understanding marketing taught to generations of students from the mid-1920s until the mid-1960s.) Although the traditional approaches/schools have long gone out of favor, Copeland’s classification of consumer and industrial (business) goods (products and services) have stood the test of time and are still in use 100 years later. Long overlooked, Copeland’s (1924) Principles of Merchandising also anticipated the marketing management/strategy as well as the consumer/buyer behavior schools of marketing thought, dominant in the discipline since the 1960s, for which he has seldom – if ever – been acknowledged.
Research limitations/implications
Historical research is limited because some relevant source material may no longer exist or may have been overlooked.
Originality/value
There have been no reviews of Copeland’s principles in almost a century, and no published meta-analysis of this forgotten classic exists. New discoveries reveal the value in studying marketing history and the history of marketing thought. For marketing as a social science to progress, it is invaluable to understand how ideas originated, were improved and integrated into larger conceptualizations, classification schema and theories over time.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the doctoral seminar in the history of marketing thought and theory taught by Donald F. Dixon.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the doctoral seminar in the history of marketing thought and theory taught by Donald F. Dixon.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is an historical narrative based on the author's personal recollections of the historical context of the seminar, how it was organized and conducted, along with a sample class discussion of the first lesson in marketing systems.
Findings
Dixon was indisputably a maverick who worked far outside the marketing mainstream. Consequently, he had a truly unique historical systems framework for understanding and teaching the history of marketing thought.
Originality/value
Because of its uniqueness, the Dixon seminar offers novel insights into teaching the history of marketing thought and the development of marketing theory.
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The purpose of this paper is to stimulate historical thinking in dealing with problems of marketing thought, by explaining the advantages of studying the history of a discipline's…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to stimulate historical thinking in dealing with problems of marketing thought, by explaining the advantages of studying the history of a discipline's ideas; examining what has been included in prior histories; and evaluating the completeness of coverage in Tadajewski and Jones' (2008) The History of Marketing Thought.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a comparative analysis based upon prior histories of marketing thought.
Findings
For teaching, with modest supplementation, The History of Marketing Thought provides a full appreciation of the intellectual heritage of marketing. For research purposes, The History of Marketing Thought does reasonably well in organizing concepts and theories into schools of marketing thought but less well in showing how these ideas can be organized across the readings to produce new knowledge.
Practical implications
There were some important omissions in the collection. Marketing's leading thinker was largely neglected and many significant problems for marketing thought are overlooked. There was no discussion of methodological issues and minimal editorial commentary connected the parts and sections to provide a research thrust to the work. Consequently, it is recommended that another volume or two be added to this set.
Originality/value
The educational value of this work is in transmitting the knowledge base of the discipline from one generation of marketing scholars to the next. It is only after the ideas developed by earlier marketing thinkers are fully understood that innovative theories can be constructed and new knowledge created.
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D.G. Brian Jones, Eric H. Shaw and Deborah Goldring
The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the Conferences on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) from their inception in 1983 through 2007 focusing on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the Conferences on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) from their inception in 1983 through 2007 focusing on the influence of Stanley C. Hollander, who co‐founded the CHARM conference and whose drive and determination fueled its growth for the first 20 years.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses traditional historical narrative based on personal interviews, archival research, and content analysis of CHARM Proceedings.
Findings
The history of CHARM is described and Hollander's role in developing the conference is highlighted.
Originality/value
There is no written history of CHARM. This story is a major part of Hollander's legacy.
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The purpose of this paper is to present a review essay of the scholarly work of Donald Dixon, focusing on six of his major contributions to marketing thought and theory.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a review essay of the scholarly work of Donald Dixon, focusing on six of his major contributions to marketing thought and theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The research relied heavily on previously published articles, personal interviews and databank searches.
Findings
A more complete timeline of the history of marketing thought is presented. The historical work done by Dixon shows us that marketing is not a recent field of human behavior but dates back millennia. His contributions have enriched the marketing discipline and have positioned marketing in its rightful place as a social science studying one aspect of human behavior, which is buying and selling.
Practical implications
Knowing more about the history of marketing is useful both to academics and to practitioners. One learn more about the practitioners and intellectual thinkers of the past who have laid the foundation of marketing as a social science.
Originality/value
The essay ofers but a succinct summary of Dixonian marketing thought with his many contributions to marketing scholarship and macromarketing thought over the past 50 years.
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Eric H. Shaw, William Lazer and Stephen F. Pirog
The purpose of this paper is to show that Wroe Alderson's contributions to marketing thought earn him recognition as the “Father of Modern Marketing.”
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show that Wroe Alderson's contributions to marketing thought earn him recognition as the “Father of Modern Marketing.”
Design/methodology/approach
An extensive review of writings by and about Alderson, a thorough examination of the history of marketing thought literature, and the personal remembrances of one of the authors, are drawn upon to organize Alderson's numerous contributions to the marketing literature into a small number of categories. Such an organization is expected to provide a big picture overview of Alderson's significant impact on marketing thought.
Findings
Alderson's contributions to the marketing discipline can be organized into three broad categories, which collectively produced a tectonic shift in academic thinking about marketing: from distribution (macro) to marketing management (micro); from economics to the behavioral sciences; and from description and classification to explanation and theory building. These epic transformations have become so embedded in the marketing literature that they are now taken for granted, but they are so significant they represent a paradigm shift in marketing thought. Because of this legacy, the authors argue Wroe Alderson has earned the honorific title: “Father of Modern Marketing.”
Practical implications
This work provides an historical context to understand the origins of modern marketing thought by recognizing the most dynamic marketing thinker of the last half‐century.
Originality/value
This paper organizes the many and varied contributions of Wroe Alderson into broad categories in a context that is useful for researchers studying the history of marketing thought. The organization of Alderson's contributions also provides an historical foundation for scholars working on a general theory of marketing.