Marketing in the 21st century! What is marketing? How can it be conceptualized?

To answer this questions the papers discusses the history and the developement of different marketing schools over time. Therefore the main idea of the articles is to outline different marketing thougths, discuss their paradigm shifts and identify their commonalities and roles in the history of marketing. The articles provide an overview of different marketing thoughts and schools. The main topic discussed in the articles is the evolution of marketing up until the 21st century, leading to the question how different concepts and thoughts of marketing interrelate and how they fit in a general discipline of marketing. After reading the articles another question arises: Is there a general discipline of marketing or is there a general understanding of what marketing is comprised of altogether? In the course of the articles we get the notion, that the term marketing stands for a variety of concepts and thoughts that indeed result in a very fragmented discpline of research. With different thoughts and beliefs also appear conflicts. What makes the formation of a unified perception and understanding of marketing so difficult is that many researchers of a particular school of marketing thought are often reluctant in accepting other schools of marketing thought and often oversee the relationship of one to another. Although there is no single school which deals with the whole aspects of marketing, experts agree that for understanding marketing as a whole it is not sufficient to study just one school.

What makes this field of research additionally difficult is that you can study the evolution of marketing from different perspectives. We also get this notion when reading the articles, one providing us with an overview of different marketing schools and thoughts, whereas the other article tries to describe the different concepts from a historical and a methodical point of view. A reoccuring theme in the article seems the expansion and parallel path developement of marketing thoughts. The article shows that there is not only separation among the different schools, but that there are also different conceptions within a certain school. A prominent example for this is the interregional trade school which deals with the question where marketing takes place and distinguishes between a quantitative and a conceptual approach. In the above mentioned case the conceptual approach builds on former theories like gravitation theory to study the subject of matter. However the conceptual approach is more concerned with the exploration of characteristics of certain trade areas/ regions. We therefore get the notion that some schools are more devoted to a macro perspective and a holistic view, whereas other schools focus on a micro perspective. Like most of the other schools also the exchange school is divided in two parts, the traditional one focusing on marketing transactions (i.e. buying and selling) and the broadened path based on generic or social exchange (i.e. generalized giving and receiving).

Another topic of the article deals with the fight between the schools and the replacement of one school by another. The article states that popular

schools like the consumer behaviour school and the marketing managment school seem to replace older schools like the marketing systems school. Furthermore it is argued that popular schools are rather interested in the micro aspects of marketing than on the macro perspective. This orientation towards marketing in terms of a micro perspective results in a rather narrow view of the marketing, limiting the discipline to selling and promotion leaving important questions like societal implications out of scope. At the same time the marketing management school and the consumer behaviour school lead to a broader application of marketing practices beyond the traditional marketing domain. Marketing therefore seems to have mingled with a wide variety of other disciplines, particularly in the field of psychology and social psychology. Critics argue that marketing is beginning to blur its boundaries. Since it took a long time for marketing to be considered as a respectable discipline, they are also fearing that marketing is losing its hard earned reputation and identity. Therefore it seems as if marketing is still searching for its identity. One may come to the conclusion, that an answer lies in the historic school which reminds us that there are different schools to marketing thought. But here is to say that it is only a school often neglecting findings and outcomes that do not comply with the understanding of marketing at a certain time.

The macro marketing school largely based on Fiskes systems school addresses big
picture questions, such as how does the marketing system impact society?

1. What are the issues, questions or problems that the articles deal with? 2. What are the authors messages? 3. Which main concepts do you identify in the articles? 4. What rhetoric, reasoning process, logic is used (directly or indirectly)? 5. What evidence, if any, is given? 6. What metaphors, if any, are used? 7. Do you find the authors message persuasive? When reflecting the articles text, use questions as stated below. B. Reflections 1. What is your intuitive response to the authors message? 2. How do the articles relate, conceptually, to each other and articles in the set of readings covered to date? 3. Which points need further discussion?

For future research the goal must be to develop a unified marketig framework.

2. Both articles generally deal with the same topic, but they approach it in a different way. The article by Shaw and Jones discusses the differnt schools and thougths of marketing. However the article of Jones and Monieson gives a more general overview of the history of marketing, listing the relevant authors by date. The general statement of the article is that marketing has grown into a respectabe business discipline among the sciences of economics, but still lacks identity, distinctive subject matter, and boundaries of marketing as a discipline are blurring. This leads to the question in which direction marketing is currently going and where should it go. Although the article gives no clear cut answer to that topic it provides valuable instructions.

Future discussion: I think the main requirement for developing a more consistent understanding of marketing is a close collaboration of the different marketing disciplines and schools. Therefore future research has to be interdisciplinary trying to explore the linkages of different marketing schools. Building on a general theory of marketing also means accepting the viewpoints of different schools. This could be initiated through a diaolg in the form of a joint conference of all marketing schools.