Organization Theories Can Inform Research on the Marketing Organization

Abstract

To advance research, the theoretical integration of marketing activities, customer value-creating processes, networks, and stakeholders in the boundary-spanning marketing organization can be informed by a number of organization theories (cf. Ketchen and Hult 2007a, b, 2011; Wind 2009). Thirty-one theories appear particularly applicable to inform work on the marketing organization as conceptualized within the confines of MOR theory (a listing of the 31 organization theories can be found in Table 1.2). These 31 theories have emerged as potentially insightful for studying marketing organizations (cf. Workman et al. 1998) and strategic marketing phenomena (cf. Varadarajan 2010). At the outset, it is important to realize that these 31 organization theories have different arguments, units of analysis, assumptions, antecedents, and/or consequences. It is also important to note that the 31 theories can be used within organizational settings, although an argument can be made that some of them are not necessarily “organization theories” by their origin. Importantly, while a complete integration of any pair of theories is difficult, an integration of 31 theories is impossible. Instead, what I intend to accomplish is to draw out the most applicable aspects of each of the 31 organization theories within the context of the boundary-spanning marketing organization. The idea is that each theory has a unique ability to explain and predict certain aspects of the boundary-spanning marketing organization which cannot be as effectively or efficiently done by another theory.