Marketing and organization theory: opportunities for synergy

Abstract

The marketing and management disciplines have a history of exchange and mutual benefit that dates back several decades (cf. Biggadike 1981). The contributions of each discipline to concepts such as market orientation, innovation, strategic types, and the product life cycle have enhanced the other discipline. In addition, many other topics have also received similar coverage across the scholarly marketing and management disciplines. This special issue of JAMS represents a collective effort of editors, authors, and reviewers to build additional important synergies between marketing and management within the context of organization theory. A solid theoretical foundation is typically a necessity to construct an appropriate and robust underpinning for marketing research and, by extension, to achieve impact in the field. In that context, organization theory is particularly useful in the context of contributing to strategic marketing thought. Specifically, organization theory can accomplish at least three critical goals in helping marketing and management researchers to better understand organizations (Dubin 1978; Kerlinger 1986). First, theory can provide description of relationships between variables. In other words, theorizing can help researchers identify what variables are important to consider and what kinds of relationships exist among these variables. Second, theory can enable prediction of important outcomes such that, if certain antecedent conditions are identified, expectations can be offered about what subsequent events will be observed. Third, theory can allow explanation of why variables are related in certain ways. This special issue of JAMS was inspired in part by a sense that marketing research emphasizes two of these goals more than the other. As an applied field, marketing does well at describing relationships among variables and predicting outcomes such as business unit performance. Less attention is often paid to explanation. Ideally, the foundations of theoretical explanations are carefully developed assumptions, tenets, and logic (Dubin 1978). In seeking to address why important variables are related to each other, some marketing articles rely more heavily on citations of and quotations from previous work than on theoretical explanation. In contrast, management research strongly emphasizes theoretical explanations—perhaps because it has roots in sociology. This emphasis may evolve into obsession at times. Indeed, one of management’s leading scholars recently wondered aloud if management research is too devoted to theorizing (Hambrick 2007). Viewed broadly then, marketing and management are two allied fields with a long history of productive exchange. The former often seems to downplay explanation within its theorizing while the latter often fixates on it. From our perspective as editors, this juxtaposition presented an interesting opportunity for knowledge development. As noted in the special issue call for papers, we aspired to attract papers that would “shed greater insights into how organization theories can help describe, explain, and predict marketing phenomena. Theories and questions that can be addressed include but are not limited to: Do certain marketing practices meet the criteria for serving as strategic resources (resource-based view)? To what extent does knowledge exchange facilitate marketing action D. J. Ketchen Jr. College of Business, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849-5241, USA e-mail: ketchda@auburn.edu