Marketing Theory

Foundations, Controversy, Strategy, and Resource-advantage Theory

Shelby D. Hunt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317465133
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios en general

One of the true classics in Marketing is now thoroughly revised and updated. "Marketing Theory" is both evolutionary and revolutionary. As in earlier editions, Shelby Hunt focuses on the marketing discipline's multiple stakeholders. He articulates a philosophy of science-based 'tool kit' for developing and analyzing theories, law-like generalizations, and explanations in marketing science. Hunt adds a new dimension to the book, however, by developing arguments for the position that Resource-Advantage Theory provides the foundation for a general theory of marketing and a theoretical foundation for business and marketing strategy. Also new to this edition are four chapters adapted and updated from Hunt's "Controversy in Marketing Theory" that analyze the 'philosophy debates' within the field, including controversies with respect to scientific realism, qualitative methods, truth, and objectivity.

PART 1

THE NATURE OF MARKETING AND SCIENCE

This introductory section explores the nature of marketing and science. Chapter 1 examines the following questions: (1) Is marketing a science? (2) Should marketing be broadened to include nonprofit organizations? (3) What is the proper conceptual domain of the construct labeled “marketing”? (4) What is science? (5) Do the various sciences require different scientific methods? The chapter addresses these questions using a model of the scope of marketing that has come to be known as the Three Dichotomies Model, which was first proposed in an article entitled “The Nature and Scope of Marketing” (Hunt 1976b).

Chapter 2 continues the introductory material, first by exploring the nature of the marketing discipline using a perspective that has come to be known as the “responsibilities framework” (Hunt 2007b). Second, it will examine the controversy concerning the definition of marketing and conclude that the definition that the American Marketing Association (AMA) adopted in 2007 has much to recommend it, especially for any marketing practitioner or academic who views (1) marketing practice as a profession and (2) marketing academe as a professional discipline. Third, using the Three Dichotomies Model developed in Chapter 1 as an analytical tool, the chapter explores the controversy related to the AMA definition of marketing research.

1

INTRODUCTION

Question: Prove to me I should study logic!

Answer: How would you know that it was a good proof?

—Epictetus

Marketing research books usually contain sections on issues such as experimental research designs, data collection procedures, the availability and desirability of secondary data, sampling methods, data analysis, and the writing of research reports. Because this monograph discusses none of these topics, how can it claim to be about marketing research? Most books on advanced research topics in marketing discuss items such as factor analysis, multiple discriminant analysis, cluster analysis, multiple regression, dummy variable regression, canonical correlation, and structural equation modeling. Because there are few equations in this monograph, why have graduate students referred to this work as advanced issues in marketing research? Finally, students often describe contemporary works on marketing theory as “impractical,” with no relevance to the real world. How can this monograph concern marketing theory and further assert that the study of theory is the most practical intellectual pursuit of anyone interested seriously in marketing research? Is this entire monograph an inherent contradiction in terms? Let’s examine these contradictions and determine whether they are real or only apparent.

1.1 THREE CONTRADICTIONS?

Few students of marketing would deny that much marketing research attempts to explain, predict, and understand marketing phenomena. Thus, much research is directed at explaining why some products have failed and attempting to predict which new products will succeed; explaining why certain retail institutions have declined and predicting which retail institutions will emerge; explaining why some promotional programs have succeeded and predicting the characteristics of successful future programs; and explaining why consumers have allocated their expenditures according to certain patterns and predicting how consumers will purchase in the future. Thus, explanation, prediction, and understanding are fundamental to marketing research.

Care should be taken to distinguish between marketing research and market research. Marketing research (or, alternatively, scholarly research in marketing) always seeks to expand the total knowledge base of marketing. In general, market research attempts to solve a particular company’s marketing problem. To evaluate a particular department store’s image would be a market research problem. To explore whether department stores have images at all is a marketing (scholarly) research problem. To attempt to determine the best location for a particular warehouse is a market research problem. To attempt to develop a model for locating warehouses in general is a marketing research problem. The following question can serve as a litmus test for differentiating market research from marketing research: “After conducting this research project, what will we then know about marketing in general that we do not know now?” In short, “What will be the contribution of this research to knowledge about marketing?” Unfortunately, many dissertation research proposals and even some completed dissertations fail this test. Although the line differentiating marketing research from market research may sometimes be fine, the distinction is useful and conceptually important.

Myers, Massy, and Greyser (1980) have drawn similar distinctions among basic research, problem-solving research, and what they refer to as “problem-oriented” research. They suggest that problem-oriented research lies between basic research and problemsolving research and “may be fundamental or highly applied, but its driving force is the desire to make a contribution to the solution of an important practical problem” (1980, p. 157). Does problem-oriented research “lie between” basic research and problem-solving research? If “basic” research is considered to be roughly synonymous with “marketing” research and “problem-solving” research is considered to be roughly synonymous with “market” research, then problem-oriented research is not “between” the two. Problem-oriented research is a subclass of marketing research because it is research directed at general classes of marketing problems and because it is generalizable across different firms. Problem-oriented research is, simply, a kind of basic research in marketing that is normative-driven rather than positive-driven (see section 1.3.1). It seeks answers to normative questions such as “How should retail establishments price their merchandise?” rather than answers to positive questions such as “How do retail establishments price their merchandise?” Both questions are appropriate for “basic” or “marketing” research.

The first apparent contradiction dissolves if we note that this monograph is substantially concerned with exploring the basic methodological issues attendant on the explanation, prediction, and understanding of marketing phenomena. These basic methodological issues are customarily given only cursory treatment, at best, in most marketing research texts. Such texts focus primarily (and probably justifiably, given their target markets) on the conventional topics previously mentioned (data collection, sampling, etc.). Fortunately for the present endeavor, many of the basic methodological issues in research and scientific inquiry have been extensively developed in the philosophy of science and are applicable to marketing research. A major purpose of Parts 1, 2, and 3 of this monograph will be to draw upon the vast storehouse of analytical methods in the philosophy of science in order to systematically explore the basic methodological issues underlying marketing research. The philosophical orientation of this monograph, sometimes referred to as “contemporary empiricism” or “modern empiricism,” may be described as a combination of critical pluralism and scientific realism.¹ Critical pluralism is the view that, because both dogmatism and relativism are antithetical to science, we should both (1) adopt a tolerant, open posture toward new theories and methods and (2) subject all such theories and methods to critical scrutiny—nothing is, or can be, exempt (Hunt 1991b). Claims of “incommensurability” represent neither a state of nature to be accommodated nor a problem to be addressed—they are a convenient catchall for squelching debate or avoiding critical scrutiny.

Scientific realism, following Hunt (1990b), is the view that:

• the world exists independently of its being perceived (classical realism);

• the job of science is to develop genuine knowledge about the world, even though such knowledge will never be known with certainty (fallibilistic realism);

• all knowledge claims must be critically evaluated and tested to determine the extent to which they do, or do not, truly represent, correspond, or accord with the world (critical realism); and

• the long-term success of any scientific theory provides reason to believe that something like the entities and structure postulated by that theory actually exists (inductive realism).

Note that a philosophy encompassing critical pluralism and scientific realism is open, without being anarchistic; it is critical, without being nihilistic; it is tolerant, without being relativistic; it is fallible, without being subjectivistic; it is absolutist, without being ABSOLUTIST.

As used here, to be “absolutist” is to maintain that there exist trustworthy criteria for evaluating the merit of competing knowledge claims. To be “ABSOLUTIST” is to maintain that one knows with certainty that one’s criteria will guarantee the production of true knowledge claims. Thus, “ABSOLUTISM” equates with Siegel’s (1987) “vulgar absolutism.”

The second apparent contradiction is (a) that “advanced” topics in marketing research universally seem to be quantitatively sophisticated and (b) that quantitative techniques are conspicuous by their absence in this monograph, yet (c) students who have used this work generally consider it advanced. The contradiction is illusory. Quantitative techniques represent a tool kit for conducting research. Many mathematical and statistical models are difficult to understand and, hence, advanced. Similarly, the philosophy of science is a tool kit that students may perceive as being relatively advanced. Students may find the tool kit to be of moderate difficulty for two reasons. First, few students have been formally exposed to the philosophy of science, and the first exposure to new material is always the most difficult. The reader not only must comprehend the substance of the tool kit but also must learn the vocabulary. Every effort has been made to “dejargonize” the presentation. Nevertheless, just as students must understand terms such as differentiation and integration to learn the role of calculus in marketing research, so must they understand terms such as retrodiction and deductive-nomological explanation to appreciate the usefulness of the philosophy of science tool kit in marketing research.

Some marketing commentators have charged that the history of marketing (not unlike the history of other social sciences) can be interpreted as a history of marketing fads. Every few years a new tool kit appears that promises to be the key to marketing problems. Thus, marketing has been blessed with motivation research, operations research, Markov processes, systems analysis, the behavioral sciences, mathematical models, multidimensional scaling, psychographics, conjoint analysis, structural equation models, and multiattribute models. Although each tool kit has value in conducting research in marketing, advocates of the various tool kits often tend to oversell and overpromise. Therefore, a caveat concerning the philosophy of science seems appropriate. Just as marketing research problems are not solved by restating our ignorance in mathematical symbols, so, too, the present philosophy-of-science tool kit provides no panaceas, no magic formulas.

The second reason some students may find this presentation moderately difficult is that we shall attempt to analyze rigorously a topic (often referred to as “the scientific method”) about which students have some notoriously nonrigorous (though often firmly held) notions. Unfortunately, rigor and difficulty often travel in tandem. If the analysis is both complete and clear (rigorous), this will maximize the opportunity for others to point out errors. When analyses are incomplete and ambiguous, the temptation is often strong for authors to dismiss their errors as misinterpretations. Because ambiguity should never be confused with profundity, I plead guilty to the charge of attempted rigor.

The last apparent contradiction is (a) students beli...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• PART I The Nature of Marketing and Science
• PART II The Foundations of Marketing Theory
• PART III Controversy in Marketing Theory
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index
• About the Author