Understanding marketing’s philosophy debates

Abstract

Purpose– The purpose of this article is to chronicle the publication events in the 1980s and 1990s that framed the development of the series of controversies in marketing that are known as the “philosophy debates”.Design/methodology/approach– The article uses a participant’s retrospective approach.Findings– The article finds that seven publication events are key to understanding marketing’s philosophy debates. The seven are the publication of the “little green book” by Grid, Inc. in 1976; the philosophy of science panel discussion held at the Winter American Marketing Association Educators’ Conference in 1982; the special issue of theJournal of Marketingon marketing theory in 1983; three articles on the “critical relativist perspective” by theJournal of Consumer Researchin 1986 and 1988; the “blue book” by South-Western in 1991; a trilogy of articles on truth, positivism and objectivity in theJournal of Marketingand theJournal of Consumer Researchin 1990-1993; and an article on “rethinking marketing” in theEuropean Journal of Marketingin 1994.Originality/value– Chronicling the key publication events enables readers to understand what the debates were about and provides readers a starting point for further investigating the issues in the debates.