Abstract
This conceptual paper argues that the marketing discipline should move away from its rather restrictive focus on customers toward a view of marketing that acknowledges the interrelatedness of stakeholders. Building on multiplicity theory, this paper presents stakeholder marketing as a revised perspective on marketing that views stakeholder networks as continuous instead of discrete multiplicities. This revised perspective offers a better understanding of stakeholder networks where (1) value exchange has become complex rather than dyadic, (2) tension between stakeholder interests has become explicit rather than implicit, and (3) control over marketing activities has become dispersed rather than centralized. The paper conceptualizes capabilities required by firms for dealing with each of these three transitions: systems thinking, paradoxical thinking, and democratic thinking. The paper discusses implications for firm performance, marketing theory, empirical research, and marketing practice and argues that embracing stakeholder marketing helps to reclaim territory for marketing in academia and business.
Highlights
The brand image of football team Washington Redskins is affected by the team owners taking branding decisions, advocacy groups claiming the brand name to be racist, sponsors linking their brand to the team, fans holding strong feelings towards the brand, regulators cancelling trademarks, the Washington DC city council seeking positive associations with their city, and other politicians voicing their opinion about the brand name.The distribution of Netflix’s online streaming services relies on internet service providers deploying sufficient bandwidth, device manufacturers offering technology for playback, customers adopting such technology, production companies making content available, and lawmakers supporting net neutrality.Keywords Stakeholder marketing
We describe a revised theoretical perspective on marketing and explain why this revised perspective provides a better understanding of the nature of value creation in current realities of complex stakeholder networks
We explain the concept of multiplicity and discuss how multiplicity theory provides a revised perspective on marketing. We discuss how this revised perspective leads to a better understanding in many contexts: we describe three transitions in marketing practice that make the traditional perspective on stakeholder networks increasingly inappropriate and call for new capabilities for dealing with these transitions
Summary
The brand image of football team Washington Redskins is affected by the team owners taking branding decisions, advocacy groups claiming the brand name to be racist, sponsors linking their brand to the team, fans holding strong feelings towards the brand, regulators cancelling trademarks, the Washington DC city council seeking positive associations with their city, and other politicians voicing their opinion about the brand name.The distribution of Netflix’s online streaming services relies on internet service providers deploying sufficient bandwidth, device manufacturers offering technology for playback, customers adopting such technology, production companies making content available, and lawmakers supporting net neutrality.Keywords Stakeholder marketing. Such exogenous developments have transformed stakeholder networks to be characterized by complex (rather than dyadic) value exchange, explicit (rather than implicit) tension between stakeholder interests, and dispersed (rather than centralized) control over marketing decisions.
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