Chapter 4: The academic discipline of Marketing
4.3 LCT analysis of the academic discipline of Marketing
4.3.1 Specialisation
The next section comprises an LCT analysis of the discipline, in order to identify the „rules of the game‟ of Marketing.
The discipline in general
The questions to be addressed in assessing the strength of the epistemic relations in the discipline of Marketing are (1) whether Marketing may be considered to be a specific domain with its own concepts, theories, techniques, skills and so on, which are distinct from those of other academic disciplines and, if so, (2) to what extent legitimate participation and achievement in Marketing is based on the possession of these specialist skills and knowledge.
With regard to the first question (whether Marketing is a specific domain with its own distinct knowledge and methods), O‟Shaughnessy and Ryan assert that Marketing does not meet certain criteria necessary to qualify as “an established, distinct body of knowledge organised on the basis of explanatory principles”, these criteria being “general agreement on concepts and paradigms”
and “cumulative progress in the explanatory powers of the discipline” (1979, p.153).72 Instead, Marketing has been described as “an extraordinarily open discipline, borrowing – often indiscriminately – methods, theories and concepts from everywhere” (Hunt, 1994, p.18; see also Rust, 2006; Glenn, 2011). As a consequence of this „conceptual kleptomania‟ (Hackley, 2003), theory in Marketing has been described by Gummesson (2002) as a “smorgasbord of dishes”
(p.325) and a “theory mess” (p.346). Economics, Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology are just some of the disciplines that Marketing draws on. Examples of theory borrowing include Exchange Theory from Economics and theories of personality from Psychology. Accordingly, it has been said that Marketing may simply be “the basic disciplines given a coherence by their relevance to marketing decision-making” (O‟Shaughnessy & Ryan, 1979, p. 153). The distinct or specialist knowledge content of Marketing has been described as „impoverished‟ (Crump &
Costea, 2003) and „miniscule‟ (Wellman, 2010a), leading to calls for the development of
„homegrown‟ or „indigenous‟ Marketing theory (Rust, 2006). However, progress in this regard has been slow (Robson & Rowe, 1997; Hubbard & Lindsay, 2002; Crump & Costea, 2003; Burton, 2005; Rust, 2006). Scholarly activity in Marketing tends to be based on the emulation of other disciplines rather than on the pursuit of its own fundamental research (Hunt, 1994; Crump &
Costea, 2003). In fact, Burton (2005) refers to a “theory crisis” (p.10) in Marketing, describing the discipline as “the least-theorised business school specialism” (p.16).
In addition to theory, Marketing also draws heavily on the methods of other disciplines.
Witkowski‟s analysis of early issues of Marketing journals from the 1930s reveals that
“(q)uantitative analyses were less frequent and far less sophisticated than they would later become” (2010, p.383). Originally considered a “descriptive and qualitative” discipline (Easton, 2002, p.103), Marketing embraced quantification in the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to gain
72 These two criteria will be discussed further under Density (Section 4.3.5) and Semantics (Section 4.3.2) respectively.
acceptability and legitimacy by positioning itself as rigorous and „scientific‟ (Zinkhan &
Hirschheim, 1992; Crump & Costea, 2003; Brown, 2004). Thus, in response to the first question, it appears that Marketing cannot be described as a domain with its own distinctive knowledge and methods. As discussed in Chapter 2, this is consistent with it being a region (Bernstein, 1996).
Accordingly the second question (the extent to which legitimate participation in Marketing depends on the possession of specialist disciplinary skills and knowledge) would seem to fall away. Given the emphasis that has been placed on quantitative methods in the discipline since the 1950s, one might perhaps try to make a case that the „ways of knowing‟ in the discipline are quite strongly bounded and controlled. In fact, so strongly did the quantitative orientation take hold that major Marketing journals focus almost exclusively on studies using quantitative methods and technical, statistical analyses (Hunt, 1994; Brownlie, 2007; Melaia et al, 2008). This has led to the assertion that Marketing is too “firmly entrenched in the positivist epistemological tradition”
(Kiel, 1998, p.25). As a very recent example of this, Hutto et al list as a limitation of their study that their “findings are more qualitative than quantitative” (2011, p.47). However, the quantitative methods used in Marketing are not specialist Marketing techniques, but have been adopted from other disciplines. Also, as marketing practitioners frequently make use of qualitative research such as that gathered through focus groups (Kiel, 1998), qualitative research has maintained a presence in the discipline (especially in areas such as consumer behaviour), even if this presence is not as prominent as that of quantitative research. And indeed, qualitative research is now (re)emerging more strongly in the discipline (Melaia et al, 2008; Fillis & Rentschler, 2008).
With regard to Marketing knowledge, it has been asserted that many „principles of Marketing‟ are simply commonsense ideas that offer few specific skills (Aggarwal et al, 2007). This may partly account for why Marketing lecturers often do not have a first degree in Marketing (Macfarlane, 1997a, 1998; Tamilia & Veilleux, 2007), and why it seems not to be obligatory to major in Marketing in order to find a job in marketing (Rotfeld, 1995 in Tamilia & Veilleux, 2007;
Macfarlane, 1997b; Evans et al, 2002; Ackerman et al, 2003; Aggarwal et al, 2007; Glenn, 2011).
In fact, Wellman (2010b) recently found that less than a quarter of employers in the UK required a Marketing degree for early career positions in marketing. This would seem to indicate that, in Marketing, the possession of specialist knowledge and skills is not crucial to participation and achievement. Indeed, Neuman asserts that „soft‟ areas, such as Marketing, “place greater importance on broad general knowledge” (2001, p.138; see also Walker et al, 2009).
In light of the above discussion, Marketing can be said to have relatively weak epistemic relations (ER-).
Marketing at UKZN
Although one of the lecturers, Kamini, noted that students were “going to have to acquire the Marketing knowledge, the Marketing terminologies…so, Marketing speak”, the possession of specialist disciplinary knowledge appeared to be downplayed as a basis for success in the discipline by both the students and lecturers.
As evidence of this, the same lecturer pointed to the practice of accepting students into the Marketing Honours programme even if they had achieved marks that she felt were not high enough in their undergraduate Marketing courses.
…it’s also funny how people that don’t have a proper background in Marketing - or even if it was Supply Chain or whatever – they don’t have a proper background, but they get into the [Marketing] Honours system with a frightening 60%, some people with 57s and whatever (Kamini).
Interestingly, her comment also alludes to it‟s not being crucial to have a background in Marketing at all, as she indicates that good performance in Supply Chain Management might be acceptable for admission to Marketing Honours. So clearly she does not consider the mastery of specialist (Marketing) disciplinary knowledge to be an important prerequisite for participation and success in the discipline. Further evidence of this can be seen in Michael‟s statement that he had “never studied Marketing”, but had been lecturing Marketing for 25 years. Specialist knowledge was also not felt to be crucial for employment prospects, with Kamini asserting that employers “don‟t look for that technical stuff; they look for people that are different”.
Similar feelings were expressed by the students. Nothando felt that it was possible to be a successful marketer even though “you may not be good in the class, in the classroom, like theory wise”. This was based on her own experience of being “not the greatest student when it comes to marks”, but at the same time managing to successfully run her own small marketing business.
Based on the above, Marketing at UKZN can also be characterised as displaying relatively weak epistemic relations (ER-), thus mirroring that of Marketing generally. Kamini‟s last comment points to disciplinary knowledge not being as important as students‟ personal traits and attributes as a basis for successful participation in the discipline. This is explored further in the discussion of the social relations.
Social relations
As indicated in Chapter 3, strong social relations (SR+) means that emphasis is placed on students‟ attributes, dispositions, characteristics and backgrounds, whereas weak social relations (SR-) means that these aspects are downplayed.
The discipline in general
It has been said that „soft‟ areas like Marketing focus on “student character development”
(Neuman, 2001, p.138). In the Marketing education literature, much emphasis is indeed placed on graduate attributes – especially those attributes considered important for the workplace, often from the perspective of marketing practitioners (e.g. Brennan & Skaates, 2001; McMullen &
Braithwaite, 2002; Schlee & Harich, 2010). Such attributes include creativity, persuasion, negotiation, leadership, the ability to make decisions and the ability to formulate problems (Dacko, 2006). Willingness to learn and interpersonal skills were most highly rated by practitioners in a study undertaken by Gray et al (2002). More recently, Wellman (2010b) identified 22 personal traits (including confidence, creativity, responsibility, initiative and determination) that were generally required by employers.
Accordingly, research points to the “vital role played by personal traits and attitudes” (Wellman, 2010a, p.125) or the „personal attributes‟ and „dispositions‟ (Ng, 2006) of students in contributing to their competence and success in Marketing. Melaia et al (2008) investigated the competencies required of marketing managers in South Africa through a content analysis of job specifications, as well as via interviews with marketing managers. They found that, along with competence in oral and written communication, “inherent personality traits were consistently ranked higher and were more prevalent than any others in the study” (2008, p.242).
Textbooks too highlight for students the importance of personal dispositions to their success in their Marketing courses. For example, they are advised that “…your positioning (or marketing) of yourself must start at the very beginning of the course. To this end, this text includes several new features especially designed to enable you to stand out during the course…” (Schiffman et al, 2010, p.16).
This represents relatively strong social relations (SR+).
The preceding discussion of the epistemic and social relations indicates that, in Marketing, one‟s personal dispositions and attributes may be considered to be more important than the specialist knowledge and skills one possesses as the basis of legitimate insight. Thus, a knower code (ER-, SR+) applies.
Support for this comes from the finding that personality traits are more highly ranked than specialist knowledge as being important for marketing managers in South Africa (Melaia et al, 2008). Macfarlane too points to the greater value placed on the knower across business disciplines:
The success of non-academic paperbacks with catchy titles and common- sense conclusions does little to enhance the reputation of business and management studies as a bona fide academic discipline. The success of enterprising individuals with minimal business (or sometimes general) education and „I did it my way‟ books, written by entrepreneurial and managerial icons, serve to celebrate and reinforce the cult of the amateur while undermining the value of academic study.
(1995, p.6)
He also points to the prevalence of „gurus‟ in business and management studies (Macfarlane, 1997b). Thus, knowledge is downplayed in favour of the knower.
Marketing at UKZN
The importance of students‟ attitudes and dispositions in Marketing was stressed by all of the lecturers. Michael highlighted the importance of creativity, enthusiasm and commitment and also felt that “you‟ve got to be extroverted”. Kamini noted that good academic performance was not necessarily important to employers, who often instead looked for people who were “different” and
“not the same as the standard person”. She expected good Marketing students to be endearing, extroverted, engaging, funky, stylish, resourceful, entrepreneurial, confident, smart, questioning, to have “street smarts”, to think logically and intuitively and to be able to start conversations and generate ideas. Nisha felt that there was more room for students to put forward their own opinions, perspectives and arguments in Marketing, compared to disciplines such as Economics and Accounting.
The successful Marketing students, I’ve normally found…they have a…well, from the ones I’ve dealt with – a lot of them have a, er…they have some endearing quality about them, they…they have something, um, which is not the same as the standard person.
Um, like one guy I know, he’s, um, he’s a bit, you know, he dresses a bit…funky and he’s got a…he wears funky hats and things like that. But he’s the kind of people that you…the kind of person that you…you will get attracted to because you wanna listen to what he says. Because as much as he looks funky and whatever, he’s got a certain style about him and the way he speaks…so when he speaks about marketing, or something about marketing, it’s believable, so…he’s engaging (Kamini).
The students too placed emphasis on the importance of personal attributes and dispositions.
Maxine felt that Marketing allowed students more room to draw on their own perspectives than
other disciplines did and Amantha agreed that in Marketing students were “given a lot of room to say our feelings”. Many of the students had chosen to major in Marketing because of the perceived fit with their personalities and several (such as Amantha, Sihle, Maxine and Bongani) often described themselves as creative and people-oriented. It was felt that good Marketing students need to be creative, outgoing, „vibey‟, crazy, fun, open-minded, happy, be able to think quickly, see and capitalise on opportunities and express themselves confidently. Bongani also felt that it was important to be passionate and “amped or hyped up to do Marketing”.
…I think, like, as a marketer you need to need to, like, be an extrovert…personality is important. Like this guy from [name of company that participates in UKZN’s graduate recruitment programme] said, like, marketing people are happy people. So I think that’s the kind of…you need to be very open-minded (Nothando).
Only two of the nine students, Kiara and Amantha, mentioned that having a good knowledge of Marketing concepts was important. According to Nothando, what was more important in Marketing was “the creativity, coming up with concepts, making like a brand…you make the brand alive”. She also felt that the weight given to individual attributes meant that it was possible for somebody to find employment in marketing “if they‟ve got a creative side or if they‟ve got that edge…they can make it without getting the Honours [degree] and everything else that comes with it”.
It is clear that strong social relations (SR+) were espoused in Marketing at UKZN.
The combination of weaker epistemic relations and stronger social relations in Marketing at UKZN corresponds to a knower code (ER-, SR+).