The making of marketing decisions in modern marketing environments

Abstract

Currently, marketing is undergoing a major shift driven by environmental disruptions and advances in marketing technologies. This shift has implications for marketing decision-making. However, research on how marketing managers navigate modern marketing environments’ complex, volatile, and data-intensive nature is limited. This study addresses this gap by qualitatively analyzing marketing managers’ decision-making processes in 15 companies. Using the naturalistic decision-making approach and the situative perspective on cognition and action as theoretical lenses, we identify three key characteristics of decision-making in modern marketing environments—namely, agility, inventiveness, and reflexiveness. Our findings provide empirically grounded insights into the cognitive and behavioral processes involved in marketing decision-making and contribute to a deeper understanding of how managers navigate—and respond to—modern marketing environments’ challenges.