Chapter 4: The academic discipline of Marketing
4.2 Background to the academic discipline of Marketing
4.2.1 The discipline generally
Marketing defined
Marketing has been described as multi-faceted: it is “a philosophy, an attitude, a perspective, and a management orientation that stresses customer satisfaction” and “a set of activities used to implement this philosophy” (Lamb et al, 2008, p.4). The definition of marketing adopted by the American Marketing Association (AMA) tends to be widely quoted in industry and academia worldwide and is periodically revised to reflect shifts in the marketing world (AMA, 2008). The most recent definition was unveiled in 2008 and describes marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (AMA, 2008, p.2). This new definition presents marketing as a much broader activity than some previous definitions, which tended to view marketing more narrowly as an organisational function or management system (Wilkie & Moore, 2007; AMA, 2008). The career opportunities available to Marketing graduates are thus varied, and include marketing management, advertising, brand management, retail, and marketing research.
Marketing as an academic discipline
In Chapter 2, it was noted that disciplines can be viewed as relatively autonomous social fields of practice comprising structures of knowledge and knowers who share norms relating to the production and communication of knowledge. In line with this understanding, Witkowski describes an academic discipline as “a field of teaching, writing and research” (2010, p.371).
Marketing as a specific academic discipline began in the early twentieth century (Shaw & Jones, 2005; Lagrosen & Svensson, 2006; Rust, 2006), mainly in the United States of America (USA) where the majority of research - and most likely teaching - still takes place (Easton, 2002).
Important milestones in the development of Marketing as an academic discipline include the following: the first courses were offered at universities in the USA in the 1902-1903 academic year; by 1920 a number of Marketing textbooks were available; and in the mid-1930s the first specialised professional association and Marketing journals were launched (Witkowski, 2010).
From the beginning, Marketing scholars held different ideas about the nature of the discipline and by 1920, there were already three major schools of thought: the functions school (focusing on marketing activities), the commodity school (focusing on the classification of goods and services) and the institutional school (focusing on the work of middlemen). Nevertheless, early scholarship in the discipline held issues of marketing and society as central. And even though a managerial perspective was represented, it was only in the 1950s and 1960s that the managerial school became dominant in the discipline (Witkowski, 2010) – a situation that prevails today (Catterall et
al, 2002; Tadajewski & Brownlie, 2008). The notions of „marketing concept‟, „marketing mix‟,
„product life cycle‟ and „market segmentation‟ are just some of the concepts that have arisen out of the managerial school (Lagrosen & Svensson, 2006). The enduring influence of the managerial school on the discipline is clear from an overview of the core areas of study in the knowledge base of Marketing (Yiu, 2009), as represented in Table 4.1. These areas of study are taught in Marketing courses around the world.
Table 4.1: The knowledge base of the academic discipline of Marketing AREA OF STUDY DESCRIPTION
Consumer behaviour Focuses on understanding consumers’ needs, wants and decision-making processes.
Marketing research Focuses on the process of gathering information about customers, markets and the external environment.
Market segmentation and targeting
Focuses on the identification and selection of target markets.
Positioning and branding Focuses on managing the product/service name, logo, design, features etc. so as to differentiate the organisations product/service from those of competitors
Marketing mix Often referred to as the ‘4 Ps’, this is a major focus of the Marketing discipline. The 4 Ps relate to the decisions that an organisation must make about its:
Product: product mix (breadth and depth of product offering); product line (product grouping); product life-cycle; services marketing
Price: break-even analysis; pricing strategies in different situations
Place: channels of distribution for products and services, including retailing, wholesaling and physical distribution
Promotion: marketing communication tools (e.g. advertising, personal selling, public relations, sales promotions, digital communications), media (e.g. broadcast, print, online) and strategies
Customer relationship management
Focuses on the retention of customers.
International marketing Focuses on marketing an organisation’s products in more than one country.
Marketing ethics Focuses on the ethical considerations surrounding marketing decision-making and practice.
Source: based on Yiu (2009, pp.72-73)66
The dominance of the managerial school within the discipline has been attributed to the practicality of its concepts (Lagrosen & Svensson, 2006). Marketing first emerged in business schools for the main purpose of assisting marketing managers to perform better in their jobs and the discipline‟s applied orientation “ties academic thought in marketing to the real world” (Rust, 2006, p.1). As a consequence of this initial close relationship between marketing practice and Marketing academia the two are often implicitly equated, something that Wilkie (2007) cautions against in his call for greater distinction between the issues, behaviours and perspectives of each sphere. While some authors (for example, Rotfeld, 1996; Hunt, 2002; Holbrook, 2005) have supported the idea that Marketing be viewed as an academic discipline, rather than as a
66 Yiu (2009) does not include services marketing as one of the core areas of Marketing knowledge, perhaps because services marketing could be considered an adaptation of „4 Ps‟ marketing. Indeed, the marketing literature in previous years has included debate around the status of services marketing;
however, many now view services marketing as a distinct field of study within marketing.
professional one focused on vocational training, for others “the vocational aim of marketing degrees is now a given” (Wellman, 2010a, p.120). Indeed, much Marketing education research focuses on evaluating Marketing curricula and graduates in relation to the needs and expectations of the workplace (Smart, Kelley & Conant, 1999; Hunt, 2002; Aggarwal et al, 2007;
Fillis & Rentschler, 2008; Walker et al, 2009; Lincoln, 2010).
Marketing education
The Marketing literature shows ongoing interest in the gap between Marketing theory and practice and recognition of the need to reflect critically on the value added by current undergraduate Marketing curricula to students and to prospective employers (Smart, Kelley &
Conant, 1999; Aggarwal et al, 2007; Fillis & Rentschler, 2008). However, the bulk of the literature on the outcomes of Marketing education has focused on the mismatch between graduate attributes and the needs of employers and has thus tended to emphasise the perspectives of employers and practitioners – and, to a lesser extent, academics – over students‟ perspectives and experiences. The literature also shows that the methodologies employed in research studies in this area have been predominantly quantitative (Brownlie & Saren, 1997). This „gap debate‟
must be broadened by academe‟s acknowledging its duties and responsibilities to stakeholders other than Marketing practitioners (Hunt, 2002) - primarily students – and by adopting research approaches and methodologies which allow for deeper insight into the relevant issues (Brownlie
& Saren, 1997).
Much less attention has been given in the literature to the notion of a mismatch in the ways that students and lecturers construct Marketing as an academic discipline and specifically the academic literacies that are considered necessary for success in the discipline. Although Kavanagh (1994, p.33) asserts that “marketing in the academy is a social construction”, the language through which Marketing is constructed remains uncontested, pointing to a need for research around language and discourse (Brownlie & Saren, 1997), as well as how academics
„make‟ Marketing and the practices that tie members together as a discipline or „tribe‟ (Brownlie, 2007; see also Ferguson, 2008). In other words, there is a need for more reflexivity in Marketing.
Ahola et al (2008) contend that it is good practice to reflect critically on core disciplinary assumptions and their socio-political consequences, especially given the pervasiveness in contemporary society of Marketing practices and vocabulary; they thus see a need for a more critical and reflexive approach to education so that future marketers are able to problematise the taken-for-granted. Brownlie too indicates that an important step forward for the Marketing discipline will be to “better understand how our knowledge-making practices are mediated by institutionalized power relationships that govern our conduct as academic practitioners” (2007, p.663).
There is “a limited literature on teaching marketing subjects” (Brownlie, 2007, p.666).67 Studies conducted in Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) indicate that students perceive the quality of teaching in „business‟ to be lower than that in other areas of study; this perception may in part be related to the claim that “business faculties appear to have a distinctive culture of learning and teaching that sets them apart from other faculties” (Freeman & Johnston, 2008, p.63) - although the authors unfortunately do not elaborate on what this culture is. However, other authors have painted a picture of a traditional or „signature‟ pedagogy (Shulman, 2005a, 2005b) in Marketing in which “students are generally passive recipients of lecture/tutorial materials” (Baron & Harris, 2006, p.294; see also Kelley & Bridges, 2005; Glenn, 2011). Given that signature pedagogies are seen to be “strong forces of socialisation” (Poole, 2009, p.54), there are likely to be implications here in terms of specialising consciousness in ways that enable students to participate effectively in the Discourse of Marketing. Dacko argues that Marketing education should instead “be based on the pillars of a project and dissertation, classroom debate and discussion, and oral presentations” (2006, p.83).
There are also criticisms in the literature of the approaches to learning adopted by business and management students. For example, Ottewill (2003) cites a number of studies in support of his assertion that student motivation, attitudes to learning and instrumental learning are problems facing business and management educators in particular. It is ironic that many students see business studies as providing access to a job, not an education (Graves, 1983, in Ottewill, 2003;
Huber, 1990; Rotfeld, 1996; LaBarbera & Simonoff, 1999; Pappu, 2004; Holbrook, 2005), and thus perhaps adopt instrumental approaches – yet these same approaches result in criticism from potential employers on graduate attributes (see, for example, Skinner, 2005). Corporations want graduates who can take a broader view, and often prefer to hire and train non-business/Marketing graduates (Rotfeld, 1995 in Tamilia & Veilleux, 2007; Macfarlane, 1997b; Evans et al, 2002;
Ackerman et al, 2003; Aggarwal et al, 2007; Glenn, 2011; Wallerstein, 2011).
Lack of student motivation could partly be due to the perception of management education as unchallenging and uncritical (Macfarlane, 1995; Brown, 1997; Cunliffe et al, 2002; Smith, 2008).
Within management faculties, Marketing is often seen as a comparatively easy major that is not academically challenging or demanding (Aggarwal et al, 2007; Tregear et al, 2010). It frequently serves as a „default major‟ for unsuccessful Accounting and Finance students (Hugstad, 1997, in LaBarbera & Simonoff, 1999; Camey & Williams, 2004). This may be due to Marketing modules generally being scheduled later in business degrees (Kleine, 2002) and thus attracting students
67 This is fast changing, however, with the emergence of journals such as the Journal of Marketing Education and Marketing Education Review.
who may be unsuccessful in earlier modules or unsure of their majors and career ambitions (Hugstad, 1997, in LaBarbera & Simmonoff, 1999). Additionally, some students may be drawn to Marketing because of its popularity and its image68, despite not having a clear idea of what the discipline actually entails and what they will be studying (Evans et al, 2002, p.579, citing O‟Brien
& Deans, 1995; Parker, 2002). This is problematic because “the more a student identifies with being a marketing major, the more committed he or she will be to enacting behaviours that lead to success as a marketing student” (Kleine, 2002, p.15).
As noted previously, students and lecturers may hold different conceptions of what constitutes the Discourse of Marketing and how having a sound grasp of, and proficiency in, the disciplinary Discourse will enhance performance and understanding. For example, while various studies of academics‟ and practitioners‟ opinions have shown the importance of communication skills (especially written) for Marketing graduates, students do not rate this aspect as highly (Gray et al, 2002; Stringfellow et al, 2006; Melaia et al, 2008; Treleaven & Voola, 2008).
Established as an academic discipline a little over a century ago, Marketing is now a maturing area of study that has drawn on more established disciplines such as Economics, Psychology and Anthropology in its development (Rust, 2006). As outlined above, Marketing also has an applied, real world orientation. This has potential implications in terms of how the discipline is understood and how this understanding then impacts on the Discourse of Marketing. Social access, the social dimension in terms of gaining access to marketing practice, might also be important in this regard. As a discipline (or region) with boundaries that are fairly fluid and interdisciplinary, Marketing is an interesting choice within which to explore disciplinary Discourse.
In this study, the exploration of the Discourse of Marketing takes place in the context of the discipline of Marketing at UKZN. Thus, before proceeding with the LCT analysis, I provide some background to Marketing at UKZN.