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Parallel Universes and Disciplinary Space:

The Bifurcation of Managerialism and Social Science in Marketing Studies

Chris Hackley, Royal Holloway University of London

Draft version of paper published in Journal of Marketing Management , special issue on

critical marketing ( !!"# $ %&' )*& $"+

Abstract

he field of marketing studies embraces a striking contradiction+ -n the one hand, it

originated in a spirit of criti.ue and dissent which has since been manifest in a rich,

diverse and fiercely contested outpouring of marketing scholarship and research+ -n the

other, it is a highly packaged brand with a remarkably uniform identity as a set of

universal managerial problem&solving techni.ues+ his paper e/plores this deep

contradiction, positing the notion of parallel universes of disciplinary space, the one

characterised by a critical social scientific orientation, the other by a na0ve managerial

orientation+ 1hile such a dialectical figure may lead to some blurring of important

distinctions, this paper suggests that an investigation of some of its historical, political

and ideological undercurrents can contribute significantly to a re&orientation of the

disciplinary space of marketing studies+

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Parallel Universes and Disciplinary Space:

Tracing the Bifurcation of Managerialism and Social Science in Marketing Studies

Abstract

he field of marketing studies embraces a striking contradiction+ -n the one hand, it

originated in a spirit of criti.ue and dissent which has since been manifest in a rich,

diverse and fiercely contested outpouring of marketing scholarship and research+ -n the

other, it is a highly packaged brand with a remarkably uniform identity as a set ofuniversal managerial problem&solving techni.ues+ his paper e/plores this deep

contradiction, positing the notion of parallel universes of disciplinary space, the one

characterised by a critical social scientific orientation, the other by a na0ve managerial

orientation+ 1hile such a dialectical figure may lead to some blurring of important

distinctions, this paper suggests that an investigation of some of its historical, political

and ideological undercurrents can contribute significantly to a re&orientation of the

disciplinary space of marketing studies+

ntroduction

3fter more than 2!! years as a university teaching sub4ect, originally in 5orth 3merica

and 6ermany (7ones and 8onieson, 2""!9 :artels, 2"$2# and some %! years later in

;urope, 3sia and 3frica, marketing studies remains an enigma+


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=irat and Dholakia, !! #+ 8arketing has boomed with the rise of popular management

studies in the 2"%!>s, the perceived triumph of capitalism over state planning in the 2""!s

and the global ascent of university business and management education, and not

forgetting the prodigious literary, rhetorical and advocacy skills of gurus such as ?eter

Drucker, ?hilip @otler and ed Levitt (3herne, !! 9 :rown, !!$#+ oday, marketing

studies en4oys continued success and its web of professional associations, academic

research 4ournals and university courses seems to be on a perpetual growth tra4ectory+

he field has been characterised by tension and contest with regard to its aims, values,

predominant theories and methods (Levy, !!*#, given its status as an ideological andcultural phenomenon (1ilkie and 8oore, !!*9 8arion, !! #+ his tension has been

regularly aired in its leading 4ournals, as befits a vibrant and politically and intellectually

engaged disciplinary sub4ect+

:ut, in spite of the scale of its reach and popularity, marketing studies occupies an

unenviable position as the butt of the most coruscating criticism to be levelled at any

management field, and indeed at any academic discipline, not e/cluding golf studies and

homeopathy+ 3 perusal of its published research papers supports its claims to be a plural

and cross&disciplinary enterprise (1ilkie and 8oore, !!*# which is engaged with

management practice but informed by a critical social scientific spirit of in.uiry+ 3t the

same time, it stands accused of being an instrument of cultural domination, and of lacking

the critical intellectual elements which would render it fit for purpose as a field of

thought, and of practice (Lowe et al, !!$9 Acott, !!%9 Aheth and Aisodia, !!$9 8organ

2"" 9 !!*#+

*


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Auch diametrically opposing viewpoints can only be e/plained if marketing studies is two

.uite different things+ his paper posits a putative bifurcation of marketing along

a/iological and methodological lines+ s legitimacy+ he

paper e/plores the historical, thematic and political influences in this bifurcation with the

aim of illuminating some of the many contradictions which define marketing>s

disciplinary space, and which will inform its orientation in the future+

he paper will firstly reprise some of the key criticisms levelled at marketing studies+ s development as a sub4ect of academic study,

drawing on historical accounts and thematic analyses+ ?articular interest falls on accounts

of the institutional and political influence over the spread of marketing studies and the

development of the marketing concept+ =ollowing from this analysis, the paper e/plores

in more detail the charge that marketing is a vehicle of managerial ideology which

promotes the individualistic and libertarian values of neo&liberalism+ =inally, the paper

concludes with implications for the future of marketing>s disciplinary space+ he aim,

overall, is not to reinvigorate a moribund managerial agenda, nor to move towards a

manifesto for critical marketing studies but, rather, to try to pick apart some of the

influences which have given rise to the disciplinary schiBophrenia of social science and

managerialism in marketing studies, and to gain a sense of the kind of intellectual space

which might emerge if these are acknowledged and picked apart+

)


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!riticisms of marketing studies

he crimes of which marketing studies stands accused might surprise even some of its

fiercer critics from outside the academy+ Lowe et al ( !!$#, for e/ample, argue that

marketing studies are deeply implicated in the material enslavement of modern

societies (no less# because the sub4ect legitimiBes Eamoral scientism> as the guiding

principle of marketing practice (p+2"'#+ =or these authors, the failures of marketing

practice can be traced to failures of marketing research and education+ hey suggest that

a solution lies in formal marketing management and administrative education which isre&focussed& away from a heavy, positivist, technical orientation and more toward a

value refle/ive and processual dialectic orientation (p+2""#+

3mong other charges are that marketing legitimiBes self&serving corporatism (@lein,

!!!#, that it wilfully neglects or marginalises ethical issues and environmental concerns

in marketing training, education and practice (Amith, 2""$9 Crane, !!!#, and that it

negatively affects children>s moral and social development by treating them as marketing

means and not as human ends (5ichols and Cullen, !! #+ he intellectual standards of

academic marketing studies have attracted e.ually forceful criticism, for, e/ample, failing

to develop viable theory (:urton, !!29 !!$#, for promoting an ahistorical worldview

which suppresses important strains of influence in marketing thought (=ullerton, 2"'%9

ada4ewski, !! a9 ada4ewski and :rownlie, !!'a#, for pursuing managerial values at

the e/pense of social, intellectual and ethical values ( homas, 2""), 2"" #, for failing to

address the gap between academic marketing research and marketing practice (1ensley,

$


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2""$9 :olton, !!$9 @atsikeas et al, !!)9 ?iercy, !! 9 6ummesson, !! a9 :rownlie et

al, !!%#, and for pursuing a research agenda which is Eautistic> and Eegotistical> (AkFlen

et al, !!', p+2 )#+ and Euncritical> business school agenda which is incapable of meeting the

challenges of either practice or ethics (Acott, !!%, p+%#+ 3s a result, as Acott ( !!%#

notes, it is roundly mocked by academicians of other disciplines+ 8arketing practitioners

have been no less damning in their 4udgment on the contribution of marketing academics

to the field+ ?eople resent 8arketing+ 8arketing has no seat at the table at board levelG

3cademics aren>t relevant+ 3nd we have an ethical and moral crisis+ (Aheth and Aisodia,!!$, p+2!#+

3 further criticism has focused on the cultural fit of the marketing management model

and the way it allegedly universaliBes 5orth 3merican values in general (Dholakia et al,

2"'!# and neo&liberalism in particular (1itkowski, !!$#+ his charge seems especially

parado/ical given the success marketing has en4oyed in non&capitalist, and collective

societies+ he first marketing te/t to be adopted in the former Aoviet Union was ?hilip

@otler>s (2" %# classic (=o/ et al, !!$#+


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5ot only that, but 3sian countries have even adapted the conspicuous consumption

lifestyle to fit the norms of group&oriented rather than individualistic values (Chadha and

Husband, !! #+

Ao, criticisms of marketing studies seem to e/pose some serious contradictions in the

light of its global success as a field of academic research and university courses+

herefore it might be useful to re&e/amine some historical and thematic analyses of the

development of the sub4ect to try to e/plain the presence of such resonant parado/ in the

discipline+

The history and spread of influence of marketing studies

-ne important criticism of marketing studies is that it has forgotten its own history+ his

has, according to some, (e+g+ ada4ewski and :rownlie, !!'b# condemned the sub4ect to

endless repetitions and reassertions of the same ideas (=ullerton, 2"'%#+ =or e/ample, the

idea that marketing practice evolved through three clearly demarcated eras from product,

to sales and, finally, marketing orientation (@eith, 2" !# has been thoroughly debunked

(e+g+, =ullerton, 2"''9 Hollander, 2"' # yet is still often repeated as fact in mainstream

marketing te/t books+ Contested as historical accounts are (Hollander et al, !!$# they do

nonetheless shade current ideas by elucidating something of the forces which gave rise to

them+ s bifurcation has come

about because the discipline took a wrong turn somewhere in its history+

%


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8odern marketing studies is often dated to the 2" !s but it did in fact en4oy a university

presence long before+ he collegiate School of Business at Wharton, University of

Pennsylvania , was established in 2''2 and was offering its first courses in product

8arketing by 2"!) i, though ;+D+ 7ones of the University of Wisconsin is credited with

teaching the first university course in 8arketing (7ones and 8onieson, 2""!9 :artels,

2"$2#+ 7ones and 8onieson (2""!# concede that there may have been earlier university

courses in 8arketing distribution in 6ermany+ he rest of the world was much slower to

take up the marketing challenge+ =or e/ample, the first professorial university Chairs in

8arketing in U@ universities were instituted in the early 2" !s, at the universities ofAtrathclyde and Lancaster, but many other leading U@ universities did not institute their

first business schools with marketing courses for another *! years+ he Said Business

School at Oxford University was established in 2"" while The Judge Management

School at am!ridge University was established in 2""$, though at both institutions

management studies was taught for a few years before+

3s marketing studies and management education became well&established in the

universities of 1isconsin, ?ennsylvania and Harvard , a constellation of professional

bodies and academic 4ournals began to emerge, wielding varied influence over the way

the field evolved+ he number of academic 4ournals publishing research and comment on

marketing studies has since grown to well over 2!!+ 3ccording to some, the top ten in

rank e/ercise considerable influence over the field>s agenda (Aividas and 7ohnson, !!$9

:aumgartner and ?ieters, !!*# although for others (1ilkie and 8oore, !!*# this

influence is uneven and fragmented+ 3nother important source of influence was created

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in 2"*$ when the key professional body for the discipline, the "cademy of Marketing ,

published the first of its authoritative definitions of marketing+ hese are periodically

updated, ostensibly to reflect the broadening scope and changing emphasis of the field+

=or ada4ewski and :rownlie ( !!'b# though, they act to close down disciplinary space

rather than broaden it, anchoring marketing to its managerial and positivistic themes and

progressively eliminating marketing and society issues (p+), citing 1ilkie and 8oore,

!! #+

more efficient+ =orty years later, ?aul

Converse (2")$# published a well&known paper which reiterated the managerial and

scientific aims of marketing science+ However, 1itkowski ( !!$# argues that the

academics who first established marketing management university education were

concerned not only with profit and managerial efficiency but also with ways in which

"


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more efficient marketing activity could increase social welfare in general+ Auccessful

marketing activity was seen as a means to an end, not as an end in itself+

ada4ewski ( !! a# argues that there have been political influences framing the way

marketing research and education is conceived, specifically the Cold 1ar and

8cCarthyism which elevated marketing to a matter of ideological as well as academic

importance+ -ne implication of this is that those marketing scholars who e/pressed

concerns for social welfare risked being tainted with a pinkish hue+ :rown (2""$# has

noted the influence of the =ord and Carnegie reports into marketing managementeducation in the UA3 in the 2"$!s (6ordon and Howell 2"$", ?ierson, 2"$"# over the

style of research in the field, pushing it toward a natural science model in response to

criticisms of its rigour and relevance+ his emphasis was renewed in 2"'' with the

"merican Marketing "ssociation ii ask =orce report on the continued lack of the

relevance of research in marketing for practitioners (Aaren, !!!9 @niffin, 2" 9 383,

2"''#+ 3ll in all, there was a need to legitimiBe market capitalism, and one discourse

which seemed to support this legitimacy was the discourse of science+

Under such political and cultural influences, 1itkowski ( !!$# argues that marketing

studies lost its intellectual, and, by implication, its moral, compass+ he social welfare

and historical perspectives which once lay at the heart of the discipline have, he argues,

been abandoned in favour of an uncritical managerialism+ 3s Contardo and 1ensley

( !!)# point out, the #arvard Business School case method which remains so influential

in management education divorced theory from practice and led to a sense that

2!


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management skill could be taught in the classroom+ his classroom&orientation for

teaching has remained even as the research enterprise for marketing continued to seek

scientific legitimacy+ 1itkowski ( !!$# suggests that, as a result, marketing educators

should lead a movement toward a more balanced discipline+ (p+ '# with a change of

emphasis away from teaching the simplistic managerial techni.ues with which the

discipline is so closely identified and toward a renewed emphasis on intellectual rigour

(especially through a historical perspective# and issues of social welfare and public policy

and 8arketing+

Aocial issues and historical perspectives are un.uestionably still a ma4or part of academic

marketing>s remit, as evidenced by many specialist 4ournals (for e/ample, the Journal of

Macromarketing and the Journal of Marketing and Pu!lic Policy # and countless

contributions on marketing and society, marketing ethics and consumer policy in other

4ournals+ :ut there is a perception that these contributions have been pushed to the

margins by the impetus for managerial solutions which prioritise shareholder value over

other concerns+

The parado" of plurality and criticism in marketing studies

Criticisms of marketing>s scope and methods can, apparently, be dismissed by a cursory

review of published studies by marketing academics+ he discipline has attracted

negative attention for its perceived methodological and a/iological myopia for some

years+ 3rndt (2"'$#, for e/ample, called for paradigmatic pluralism in the intellectual

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traditions and research methods academic use, arguing that it should not remain a one&

dimensional science concerned only with technology and problem&solving (p+ 2 in

ada4ewski, !! b p+ 2 '#+

Aince 3rndt>s (2"'$# call, marketing academics have produced a veritable torrent of

studies from practically every intellectual purview+ 8arketing and consumption

phenomena have been investigated using theoretical approaches drawn from

postmodernism and poststructuralism (:rown, 2""$ Ahankar et al, !! 9 AkFlIn at al,

!! # literary studies (Atern, 2""! onks, !! #, art history (Achroeder, !! #, neo&8ar/ist critical theory (8urray and -Banne, 2""29 3lvessson, 2""*#, anthropology (:elk

et al 2"''9 ?enaloBa, !!!# and feminism (Caterall et al, !!$9 =ischer, and :ritor, 2"")#

among many others+ 8arketing studies have investigated topics as eclectic as the

psychoanalysis of kleptomania (=ullerton, !!%#, 5estle>s 8arketing strategies in the

-ttoman ;mpire (@Jse, !!%#, the inversion of the male gaBe in advertising (?atterson

and ;lliott, !! # and the tragic life and death of 4aBB legend Chet :aker (:radshaw and

Holbrook, !!%#+ Aome of these studies, admittedly, are deliberately distanced from the

managerial marketing approach and positioned as pure human or social scientific in.uiry,

but that does not necessarily mean that they lack relevance to managerial practice, as

evidenced by, for e/ample, socio&cultural research in branding (e+g+ Achroeder and

AalBer&8Jrling (;ds#, !! 9 Holt, !!)#+

Ket, thirty&one years after 3rndt>s (2"'$# paper :rownlie ( !! # makes the same appeal,

writing of the possibilities for a critical 8arketing which is not narrow or prescriptive but

2


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draws on the wider social sciences (p+$! #+ rue, the two calls have a somewhat

different emphasis+ 3rndt (2"'$# responded to a certain order of solipsism in the kinds of

research topics and methods deployed in the field>s top 4ournals+ :rownlie ( !! #, on the

other hand, wrote of a change in the a/iology of the discipline, seeing marketing studies

as a social scientific pursuit, with all the intellectual ideals that entails, rather than merely

an accessory to organiBation management+

Aome other calls for change seem self&contradictory+ =or e/ample, in one of the

occasional critical self&reflection issues of the Journal of Marketing :olton ( !!$# hintsat the perceived failures of the discipline, calling for creative advances in the science

and practice of marketing (p+ 2#+ Ket this is couched in terms of an e/ample from

medical research in&keeping with the Journal of Marketing$s stated aim to contribute

generaliBable, validated findings for new techni.ues for solutions to marketing

problems iii+ he implication is that research in the field should remain guided by

managerial values and a positivistic, natural science model of research+ -ther, similar

calls for change are couched in terms of a re&iteration of marketing>s goals as a

managerial science (e+g+ Hunt, 2""29 Day and 8ontgomery, 2"""#, each ignoring the

possibility that marketing may be more art than science (:rown, 2"" 9 2""%#+

8any assertions about marketing studies seem to treat the discipline as a relatively

uncontested and stable thing+ Ket there is evidence in its development that there have

been fundamental disagreements over key issues which have reached only a tentative

2*


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resolution+ -ne of the most important surrounds the character of the marketing concept

itself+

The role of the marketing conce%t in marketing$s tradition of dissent

=irat and Dholakia ( !! # suggest that 8arketing has emerged as the principle mode

ofGall relationships that all institutions have with their constituencies (or Emarkets>, as

now widely used#G wishes (p+2 )#+ Ket the marketing concept itself embodies the perpetual tension

in the field+ + He looked at 8arketing as an

economic system driven by heterogeneous, and not homogeneous, consumers+ 3lderson>s

(2"$%# work positioned marketing as the discipline which articulated the variegated

voices of consumers and translated them into diversified strategies of market

management+ his work, idiosyncratic in style though resolutely managerial in focus

(:rown, !! 9 1ooliscroft et al !! # is not acknowledged in typical marketing

management te/ts and courses today yet remains influential, at least according to some

2)


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authors (e+g+ 1ooliscroft et al, !!*9 HulthIn and 6adde, !!%#+ aspects of marketing to

the margins (citing Hollander, 2"' , p+ *#+

-ne way of interpreting the marketing concept is to see it as the management mentality

which articulates the voice of the consumer in the organiBation (1ensley, 2""!9

following Drucker, 2"$" Levitt, 2" !#+ 3ssumptions about the consumer are the key

dynamic in the discipline, given that marketing is privileged over other management

disciplines because of its supposed access to consumer needs and wants and social and

cultural trends in the marketplace+ Aidney Levy>s (2"$"# work, drawing on influences

from anthropology e/tended the idea that consumers are heterogeneous in their needs and

wants and emphasised the non&rational, symbolic and identity&forming aspects of

consumption+ his position challenged the philosophical basis of conventional marketing

thought at that time (Heath, !!%#+ oday, Levy>s (2"$"# notion of Ebrand image> is part

of the le/icon of business management, even though the full implications of thinking

2$


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about marketing management through a consumer cultural lense remains under&

developed in mainstream marketing thought (Holt, !!)#+ Ket Levy (2"" , in

ada4ewski, !!'# bemoans the way that many mainstream marketing academics still

cleave to the idea of a rational, utility&seeking consumer, the very idea to which

marketing evolved as a counterpoint+

Levy>s (2"$"# anthropological idea that the consumer generates meaning from the

symbolic practices of marketing was at odds with the drive to place marketing on the

level of physical science (see also 6ardner and Levy, 2"$$#+ Aymbolism does not easilylend itself to measurement+ oday, one aspect of marketing>s bifurcation is seen in the

different model of the consumer which prevails in the parallel universes of marketing and

consumer research+ hat they are, or should be, one and the same thing might seem

obvious to the lay person+ 8arketing is nothing if it is not grounded in the consumer

e/perience+ Ket marketing and consumer research have somehow become separated

academic enterprises+ he anthropological and social scientific investigation of

consumers and consumption has become identified with the consumer culture theory

movement (3rnould and hompson, !! see also Holbrook and Hirschman, 2"' #+

his research has investigated the nature of the consumer e/perience with regard, for

e/ample, to its hedonistic, e/istential and se/ual motivations (Hirschman and Holbrook,

2"' 9 ;lliott, 2""%9 6ould, 2""2#+ ada4ewski ( !! b# has argued that this Einterpretive>

tradition of research can actually be traced back much further, to the work of

motivational researcher ;rnest Dichter (e+g+ 2")%, 2")"# who incorporated influences

from the disciplines of economic geography, political science, psychoanalysis and

2


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psychology+ s work, like much of Levy>s, seems to

be relatively ignored in the research agenda of the top marketing 4ournals+

s

ideological character is evident in its reliance on a set of relatively un.uestioned beliefs+

hese include, for e/ample, the operation of markets, the virtues of consumer orientated

organiBation, consumer sovereignty, and the distributive efficiency of placing thesatisfaction of consumer needs and wants at the ape/ of organiBational activity+ hese

a/iomatic truths provide legitimacy for marketing professionals and for the market

economy+ 3gain, such a view is predicated on a bifurcated discipline in which managerial

and social scientific values respectively inform two .uite opposed yet mutually

dependent research and teaching agenda+ t have any integrity+ ?articular te/ts

2%


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in any intellectual field discipline will have their ideological undercurrents+ wo things

stand out about marketing studies+ -ne is that discussion of the ideological influences in

the field does not generally occur in the top managerially and scientifically focused

4ournals, nor in its typical te/t books+ he other is that the discipline has become globally

popular because one particular set of truths and assumptions about marketing studies has

come to represent the entire discipline with a striking degree of uniformity+

Marketing studies# managerial ideology and neo$liberalism

=or 1itkowski ( !!$#, marketing studies has, from its origins, embodied the neo&liberal

values of individualism, freedom and choice+ 3s such, it carries strong ideological

undercurrents, making its success in other cultures all the more notable+ He argues that

that modern marketing>s theoretical foundations in classical and neo&classical economics

link it ineluctably with deep assumptions about the e/istence of private enterprise,

competitive firms, the rule of law, and the free international movement of goods, services

and capitalG+individualism and utilitarianism+ (1itkowski, !!$, p+ , citing :artels,

2"'', and 1ilkie and 8oore, !!*#+ his neo&liberal spirit is e/pressed in the

managerialism which connects academic marketing with values which have become pre&

eminent in public and commercial life in the 1estern world (AkFlIn at al, !! #+ 3s a

conduit for managerial ideology, marketing is said to wield influence as a discourse of

organiBational control (1illmott, 2"""9 :rownlie and Aaren, 2""% 8organ, 2"" # and a

force marketiBing not only non&profit and charitable areas but even relationships,

e/periences and emotions (Reuter and itBiwitB, !! #+

2'


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Reilly,

!! #+ ?artly as a result, where it is discussed there has sometimes been confusion

between the concept and specific ideologies+ + his misconstrues the concept, as 8arion ( !! #

points out, alluding to Dumont>s (2"%%# distinction between ideology as a distortion of

truth, and ideology as beliefs which are un.uestioned and taken&for&granted+ he second

version is not a distortion of an absolute reality but, rather, one manifestation of a socially

constructed reality+

Hirschman (2""*# cites ;agleton (2""2# on ideology as the ways in which a particular

world&view or value and&belief system of a particular class or group of people is

reproduced through various strategies (p+ $*'#+ and EuniversaliBation>#+ 3nother, instrumentalism (;agleton, 2""2#,

defines the character of relationships so, for e/ample in typical marketing te/t books, the

greater good is e.uated with consumption+ 8arketing is referred to as an ideology not

only because, as a management philosophy, its values are a matter of faith rather than

reason (1hittington and 1hipp, 2"" # but also because it demonstrates ;agleton>s

(2""2# ideological strategies in its te/ts and courses (Hackley, !!*#+

he suggestion that marketing studies can be seen as an ideological vehicle carrying the

values of neo&liberalism and managerialism might seem far&fetched, given that marketing

2"


20/44

studies are typically understood in terms of a politically and ethically neutral discipline

made up of a patchwork of managerial problem&solving concepts and techni.ues+ 1hat is

more, as we have seen, the discipline is characterised by enormous vitality and

divergence, at least if its full range of research 4ournals, encompassing consumer

research, public policy and marketing theory are considered+ :ut the marketing studies

which attracts such vilification is the other half of a bifurcated discipline, one identified

strongly with the tools and concepts managerial approach+ 8arketing is marketed as an

applied and technical discipline in hundreds of stylised and almost identical te/t books

(Holbrook, 2""$9 Hackley, !!*# which generally ignore the critically social scientificstrains of research in the field+

8anagerialism, as manifestation of neo&liberal ideology, does not refer only to the

practical processes of organiBing resources and people but also to a discourse of power

and domination+ AkFlen et al ( !! # argue that marketing has been a fundamentally

managerial discipline since its earliest origins and this gives marketing a Egovernmental>

character (=oucault, !!!# which frames human sub4ectivity in terms of the values and

priorities of marketing+ Ao workers as well as consumers orient their thinking around a

neo&liberal set of values about the primacy of markets and marketiBed relationships+

8arketing discourse acts to impose the values of managerialism as ideology, so that they

are internalised (3lvesson, 2""*9 8organ, 2"" #+

=or ;nteman (2""*#, managerialism replaced socialism and capitalism as the pre&eminent

ideology of our time+


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of relationship and economic organisation+


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The social marketing movement

he social marketing movement (6ordon et al, !!% Hastings and Heywood, 2"")#,

alluded to above, serves to highlight some of the issues surrounding managerialism and

neo&liberalism in marketing studies+ -n the face of it, social marketing is an enterprise

which opposes and resists the values of managerialism and individualistic, economic neo&

liberalism+ :ut some critics suggest that, in fact, social marketing is 4ust as ideologically

loaded as managerial marketing studies (->Ahaughnessy, 2"" #+ Charities, public sector

organiBations seek socially responsible ends but, like commercial organisations, they alsouse marketing concepts to 4ustify many kinds of change (1illmott, 2""* 8organ, 2"" #+

Atate&sponsored promotional campaigns for energy&saving, environmental protection,

anti&cigarette smoking, safer levels of alcohol consumption and so forth seem to be

e/pressing the voices of citiBenship and social responsibility in opposition to the

e/cessive Beal of marketing+ Ket the use of marketing techni.ues, especially advertising,

to address the negative e/ternalities of marketing activity carries a potential

contradiction+ Aocial marketing can be seen to reassert the values and power of the

prevailing state authority (1itkowski, !!$9 :renkert, !! #+ Aocial marketing messages

may be well&meaning but they are cast in the same pro&marketing ideological hue as the

pro&marketing messages which they are ostensibly designed to counter, since they

potentially carry the same neo&liberal undertones as other forms of marketing activity+


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!oncluding comments

-ne could argue that the idea of a bifurcated discipline, occupying two parallel universes,

is an over&elaboration+ Ao what if managerial marketing, with its physical science model

of research and aphoristic teaching style is one discipline, with the critical social science

aspects of the discipline conducted under the interpretive consumer culture research

bannerM =or many commentators there are serious intellectual, social and by implication

moral implications of having a discipline in which ideology is disengaged from social

science+ 1itkowski ( !!$# and Lowe et al ( !!$# suggest that marketing studies needs to be reconnected to its original ethos focused on social welfare+


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Holt ( !!)# has written of iconic brands which resolve dilemmas of identity+ 8arketing

studies, as a commodity marketed and sold in itself (Holbrook, 2""$# has, arguably,

assumed a .uasi&branded character, perhaps resolving dilemmas of identity for

individuals and cultures faced with the task of reconciling some of the contradictions of

neo&liberalism+


25/44

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i http PPwww+wharton+upenn+eduPhuntsmanhallPtimelineP2''2+htmlhttp PPwww+hbs+eduPaboutPhistory+html http PPwww+bus+wisc+eduPstudentsPwhy+asp http PPwww+4bs+cam+ac+ukPaboutusPourhistory+html http PPwww+sbs+o/+ac+ukP8:3PAchoolP all accessed 7une * rd !!'+

ii http PPwww+marketingpower+comPiii http PPwww+marketing4ournals+orgP4mP
http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/huntsmanhall/timeline/1881.html%20accessed%20June%203rd%202008http://www.hbs.edu/about/history.htmlhttp://www.bus.wisc.edu/students/why.asphttp://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/aboutus/ourhistory.htmlhttp://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/MBA/School/http://www.marketingjournals.org/jm/http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/huntsmanhall/timeline/1881.html%20accessed%20June%203rd%202008http://www.hbs.edu/about/history.htmlhttp://www.bus.wisc.edu/students/why.asphttp://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/aboutus/ourhistory.htmlhttp://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/MBA/School/http://www.marketingjournals.org/jm/

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