Customer! The Forgotten Stakeholder

Abstract

The last two decades a shift in marketing, corporate strategy, organizational and market dynamics has been recorded. A series of corporate scandals like ENRON and others has shown that corporations have a significant impact on a number of stakeholders and particularly customers. The notion that the customers can shift from one product or service provider to the other may not be as valid as some theories suggest. The markets are not perfect mechanisms and customers are not rational decision makers. Although marketing has introduced to the corporate culture the customer-centric approach the results are not as positive as they should be. The paper shows that marketing and corporate governance systems have many common elements and in fact they can be complementary in practice and theory. To establish the connection-correlation between them, the author is going to review the literature from both disciplines. As a next step, an analysis of impact of the customer as a party that has an interest in the firm is going to take place. Finally, two examples of this impact will depict the importance of a change in scope – goal, strategy and practices used by both disciplines in achieving the firm’s mission and goals. The author shows that both can be benefit from the integration of mechanisms, principles and practices used by the marketing and corporate governance. The paper is the first step to create a theoretical convergence framework for these disciplines that seem completely separate. Marketing and corporate governance specialists and theorists may design a more comprehensive and holistic approach to customer that is more customer friendly, more long term and establishes a more successful and value creation (for both the customer and the corporation) relationship.