This paper discusses the widening gulf between theory and practice and examines why theoretical marketing can be deemed to be of little use to many practitioners. In order to do this one of marketing’s core tenets, the customer focused marketing mix, is analysed and found to be in need of...

Purpose – Dixon recently commented that 50 years ago “marketing management and planning was part of marketing theory, today it seems to be all there is.” There is now a growing fragmentation of marketing thought, and a lack of marketing relevance to critical social and economic questions,...

Marketing education today is rather isolationist — marketing students are taught too many specialities, and they are given to sharp a profile in marketing particulars. The interaction of the marketing function with other key functions of a corporation is forgotten. In this article we outline...

Reviews the evolution of marketing to date. Discusses the different stages of transaction marketing and relationship marketing. Goes on to discuss a new marketing system called developmental relationship marketing. The system integrates concepts and approaches used in both transaction marketing...

Purpose – In today's competitive markets where market offerings are far more complicated and customer interfaces are far broader than conventional marketing models assume, marketing has become increasingly tactical and lost control of the customer management process. The purpose of this paper...

Purpose – In general, as part of the ongoing discussion about the importance of business partnerships in industrial markets, specifically the paper seeks to comment on the Hunt et al. paper in this issue. Design/methodology/approach – Hunt et al. argue that one reason for the prominence of...

Purpose – The authors propose to reply to the comment by Mario Rese on the article “The explanatory foundations of relationship marketing theory.” Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a critical analysis. Findings – The comment of Rese has misspecified the major problems...

This paper examines popularly accepted approaches to market orientation and compares and contrasts them with currently applied alternative approaches. Approaches to new product development are also discussed. It argues for consideration of the existence of pluralism in the marketing domain, with...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a review essay of the scholarly work of Donald Dixon, focusing on six of his major contributions to marketing thought and theory. Design/methodology/approach – The research relied heavily on previously published articles, personal interviews...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative view of marketing that Donald F. Dixon spent much of his distinguished career developing – a paradigm that we refer to as the Dixonian systems perspective of marketing. It is a paradigm that presents marketing as a phenomenon...