Special Session: Does Marketing Have the Right Answers? Questions of Growth, Measurement, Insight, and Heart: An Abstract

Abstract

There has been much discussion within the marketing literature about marketing’s influence both within the firm and within the family of academic business disciplines (e.g., Clark et al. 2014; Eisend 2016; Homburg et al. 2015). This begs the question of whether or not marketing provides the relevant answers and knowledge base needed in areas of theoretical and conceptual innovations that reflect the changing social-, technological-, ethical-, and global growth-oriented realities of the twenty-first century (Webster and Lusch 2013; Ferrell and Ferrell 2016). These issues signal significant change to business models, growth strategies, marketing channels, customer relationship management, as well as the domain of mainstream marketing research, its methodology and relevance. Inquiries into the adequacies of marketing’s extant knowledge base for continued development may uncover intellectual, methodological, and conceptual ruts that further distance marketing scholarship from its proper place in knowledge creation at every level of the firm.

The purpose of this special session is to stimulate critical, forward-looking conversation on the nature of marketing and its place in the firm and in the family of business disciplines. Questions of marketing’s ability to create relevant understanding within various contexts, in the marketplace, in the lives of consumers, and in the society, will be taken up, with a view to addressing marketing’s ability to answer “the right questions.”

“…the increase in [marketing] knowledge [presently] occurs at a decreasing rate, and marketing knowledge has reached a stage of maturity…. The more mature a research field, the less groundbreaking its new findings, which therefore leads to less increase in knowledge...”

—Martin Eisend