Chapter 4: The academic discipline of Marketing
4.3 LCT analysis of the academic discipline of Marketing
4.3.3 Autonomy
Combining the two dimensions gives a code for Density at UKZN of (SG+, SD-) i.e. higher gravity and weaker density.
months you want them to…specialise in both’. So I…I dropped that, and [the co- ordinator] agreed with that (Michael). 73
That the lecturers had full control over the discipline is also evident in the fact that marketing practitioners were not asked to make input into the design of the undergraduate curriculum and not invited as guest lecturers - something that students bemoaned:
I sort of feel that our lecturers should try to give us more up to date examples, what’s happening in the workplace (Maxine)
I would like to, like know what marketers do on a day to day basis, or like a marketing director. What he sits and does (Bongani)
…you guys need to bring more professionals. Guest speakers who can tell you about the industry (Kiara).
Marketing at UKZN is thus characterised by strong positional autonomy (PA+).
Relational autonomy The discipline in general
Discussions of Marketing in the discipline‟s literature “often implicitly equate marketing practice and marketing academics, as if the problems, opportunities, and issues are equivalent in these spheres” (Wilkie, 2007, p.131). However, Marketing is on campus as an academic discipline (Rotfeld, 1996; Hunt, 2002; Holbrook, 2005) and, like other business disciplines which were “once perceived as the antithesis of academe, is now at its heart, reconstructed as academic practice with the genres appropriate to it: lectures, essays, seminars, projects, examination papers, research reports, dissertations and theses” (Bloor & Bloor, 2007, p.154). For Marketing lecturers, achievement and status in the discipline are linked to indicators such as research output and teaching evaluations (Holbrook, 2005).
This focus on academic practices and genres, as well academic criteria for the selection and evaluation of Marketing lecturers, indicates that the „ways of working‟ in Marketing are drawn from academia and not from any other field (for example, business). As Macfarlane indicates, teaching communities in business disciplines are “dominated by an academic culture” (1995, p.5). This is clearly reflective of stronger relational autonomy (RA+).
The combination of PA+ and RA+ points to the strong overall autonomy of the discipline.
73 The co-ordinator referred to here was not from the discipline of Marketing, but was responsible for overseeing all undergraduate modules in the School, in all disciplines, in 2010.
Marketing at UKZN
As noted above, relational autonomy relates to how Marketing at UKZN is run - based on principles and ways of working that are drawn from within academia, or from other fields outside academia.
…we’re more business people rather than actually teachers… (Nisha)
…I’m not an educationist; I’m a marketing person (Michael) …you’re marking it from a business perspective (Nisha)
…with group assignments…basically the lecturers tell us “Don’t come; don’t tell me your problems with your groups. When you’re working, it’s going to be like that, so deal with it” (Thuli).
While the above statements point to there being some degree of identification with and influence from the business world in terms of how things happen in the discipline of Marketing at UKZN, it is apparent that the ways of working in the discipline are more strongly based on academic principles and practices. For example, course outlines indicate that instructional methods and assessments are based on lectures, prescribed readings, assignments, tests and examinations – all of which are academic genres. With regard to the written tasks that students have to complete for assessment, there is a much greater incidence of academic genre types (such as essays) compared to business genre types (such as reports). As shown in Table 4.5, essays are the genre type most often required and are also the most heavily weighted in terms of marks.
Many students also indicated that how things happened in the discipline of Marketing at UKZN was disconnected from „the outside world‟, pointing to the insularity of its practices.
It all has to do with theory. It’s just everything theory, theory. And then I just wonder, if in the outside world, will they be asking us about the theory? (Nothando)
…we do 100% theory…There’s no practical. So if you get there [the workplace], they’re not going to ask you ‘Discuss for us marketing mix and all those things’…but you’ll have to put that into practice (Sihle)
…we’re restricted to the whole textbook thing (Nothando).
This may partly be because only one of the three lecturer participants had any industry experience. This is unsurprising, as recruitment advertisements for Marketing lecturers at UKZN do not specify industry experience as a requirement. The selection process focuses on academic
criteria, such as teaching and research experience and skills – another indication that the ways of working in the Marketing discipline are drawn from academia, rather than from other fields.
Thus there is strong relational autonomy (RA+) in the discipline of Marketing at UKZN. The combination of the two dimensions shows the high overall autonomy enjoyed by the discipline (PA+, RA+) at UKZN.
4.3.4 Temporality