Commentary

The Changing Role of Marketing in the Corporation

Background

The purpose of this paper is to outline both the intellectual and the pragmatic roots of changes that are occurring in marketing, especially marketing management, as a body of knowledge, theory, and practice, and to suggest the need for a new paradigm of the marketing function within the firm.

The paper begins by discussing the origins of the marketing management framework, the generally accepted paradigm underlying the American marketing discipline for the past three decades. It then examines changes in managerial practice, especially the dissolution of hierarchical, bureaucratic structures in favor of networks of strategic alliances.

Based on these new forms of organization, the paper concludes with a look at the changing role of marketing and outlines a new conceptualization of the study and practice of marketing.

Frederick E. Webster, Jr., is the E. B. Osborn Professor of Marketing and Faculty Director for Executive Education at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.

Comments from members