My search for meaning in marketing

Purpose This paper is focused on my search over nearly 60 years for an understanding of marketing – not just as a management technology, but as a social discipline which gives meaning and purpose to the technology. Design/methodology/approach This paper illustrates my life as an academic in context, which began with a strong focus on marketing in contemporary management and went on to conclude that marketing is much more than management. It was my travels across the world to widely differing markets and marketplaces that led me to this conclusion. I saw individuals, groups and organizations linking with each other in the voluntary exchange of economic and social value, self-organizing into increasingly complex networks that in the end become the institutions that frame marketing action. Findings I gradually came to see marketing in a much wider, intensely human setting, and to realize some of the complexities of the networks that marketing activities generate. Practical implications My story may be of assistance to younger scholars beginning a career in marketing. Social implications Marketing is much more than management and if re-framed should/could stand alongside other social sciences in considering social and economic policy. Originality/value To build on my recollections of an unplanned life spent in search of marketing to highlight the need for younger scholars to think about marketing in a dynamic ever-changing systems setting.