Marketing Theory

In recent years, numerous marketing and organizational theorists have called attention to the analogy between jazz and management strategy. From the perspective of this jazz metaphor, key questions concern the implications of jazz training for marketing education. Too often—say, in motion pictures or television dramas—jazz is portrayed as an innocent folk music whose performance requires more feeling than knowledge. This inaccurate stereotype colors the treatment of music instruction found in the film Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995). A contrasting view of jazz as a technically demanding art form appears in the movie Whiplash (2014). These two films also represent diametrically opposed teaching styles—the first nurturing and customer-oriented, the second sadistic and product-oriented. A third motion picture entitled Keep On Keepin’ On (2014) presents a resolution of this dialectic in the form of a marketing-oriented instructor whose method of teaching combines kindness (the customer-oriented thesis) with rigor (the product-oriented antithesis) to achieve a balanced reconciliation (the marketing-oriented synthesis). From this perspective, like jazz training, marketing education is itself embarked on a marketing project that benefits from a rapprochement of customer-oriented and product-oriented impulses to attain a marketing-oriented synthesis. Thus, insights about jazz training become relevant to the challenges of marketing education—as illustrated by various examples from the author’s own experiences.

The purpose of this article is to elaborate conceptually on the user–market relationship. Existing research reports a limited user–market relationship, which simultaneously exaggerates and underplays user influence on markets. Assuming a constructivist market studies (CMS) perspective, we argue that the scope of the user–market relationship is broader than developing offers and uses. We conceptualize market shaping as five interrelated subprocesses in which users may be involved as agents: qualifying goods, fashioning modes of exchange, configuring actors, establishing market norms and generating market representations. The extent of user influence in these subprocesses is likely to vary both within a specific market and across markets. By identifying conditions conducive to user involvement in each subprocess, we lay the foundation for empirical research into how users shape markets.

The purpose of this article is to identify the antecedents of diminished value in business-to-business exchange. There is only a limited amount of research on value destruction in the context of service-dominant (S-D) logic and, to the best of our knowledge, no dyadic studies. From a business perspective, awareness of factors that have the potential to impede value creation will enable relationship partners to increase mutual value realization. The article examines the accuracy of the term ‘value co-destruction’ as a blanket description for interaction that results in value reduction, and proposes that, in many instances, ‘value diminution’ may be more appropriate. The study adopts an exploratory, qualitative approach. One-to-one interviews are conducted with clients and their creative agencies. The results suggest that diminished value outcomes are caused by resource deficiencies and resource misuse by both relational partners, separately and jointly. We propose a model of five higher-order antecedents of value diminution: absence of trust, inadequate communication, power/dependence imbalance, inadequate coordination and inadequate human capital.

Consumers have been observed to engage in deceptive consumption behaviors, including hiding their brand consumption and pretending to consume brands that they actually do not. This article defines deceptive consumption behaviors as the deliberate falsification or concealment of an individual’s consumption behaviors pertaining to a brand. The present work recognizes deceptive consumption behaviors as a relatively unexplored construct in the consumer behavior literature. Therefore, this article sets out not only to define and delineate the various types of deceptive consumption behaviors but also to explore the underlying motivations that would result in consumers engaging in this practice. We propose that these behaviors are a response to an identity threat that occurs due to goal conflict between personal and social identities. We further propose a typology to illustrate the various behaviors that consumers may employ when engaging in deceptive consumption. We explore the consequences of engaging in deceptive consumption behaviors for the consumer as well as for the consumer’s relationship with the brand and the group. Finally, we identify avenues for future research on deceptive consumption behaviors.

This article extends our knowledge of scientific marketing management and the reasons behind the emergence of the marketing concept. In our narrative, the banking community plays an important role in promoting marketing in the early 20th century. We illuminate this argument using the writings of Fred W. Shibley (1864–1944) and the theoretical resources of Michel Foucault. For Shibley, marketing advanced the interests of corporate financiers, shareholders and employees. Their profit focus was enabled through the marketing concept and accounting practices that mediated hyper- and disciplinary power. In this discourse, organizational relations reflected a pyramidal management of information through a ‘principle of omnivisibility’. These processes individualized departments and affected all employees. Importantly, these control mechanisms were seeded through ‘displacement’. This discursive move reveals a new dimension underwriting the promotion of the marketing concept and the pursuit of profit. These ‘progressive’ facets of marketing theory and practice were invoked to redirect employee attention away from their fractious relationships with management and the owners of capital. Redirecting employee focus was attempted by positioning the consumer as the ‘boss’, with increased production and consumption framed as ‘unpolitical socialism’. While the marketing management literature depicts the marketing concept in quasi-humanistic terms, we unearth the roles of hyper- and disciplinary power, combined with a status-quo orientation that underwrote its promotion in this formative period.

Value co-destruction is emerging as an important way to conceptualize non-positive outcomes from actor-to-actor interactions. However, current research in this area neither offers a clear way to understand how value co-destruction manifests nor does it consider the role of actor engagement behaviors. Drawing on a case study in the aerospace industry, the present study begins by identifying and describing two ways in which actor perceptions of value co-destruction form: goal prevention and net deficits. Next, the study identifies and describes nine actor engagement behaviors that moderate actor experiences of value co-destruction. The study also unpacks these concepts at both the actor-to-actor and service ecosystem levels. The article concludes with implications for marketing theory and practice.

An area that receives limited attention in service-dominant (SD) logic is exchange governance. Exchange governance provisions can determine how benefits and costs are created and distributed, hence their importance. Much of the rationale for this oversight arises due to the emphasis on “value” in SD logic. With this as a starting point, this commentary article offers three sets of suggestions to integrate exchange governance into SD logic research. First, the subjective, socially embedded nature of value necessitates a greater reliance on norms-based governance. Under SD logic, there is a need to govern for a wider variety of idiosyncratic interactions throughout a service ecosystem. This has a bearing on monitoring and control activities. Second, SD logic is virtually silent on resource ownership. Understanding the property rights associated with value-creating resources is likely to determine who creates and appropriates value. Third, value-in-use suggests that value does not occur at the point of exchange exclusively. Given this, there is a need to consider value at the point of exchange as well as during the course of usage. The commentary concludes with a brief research agenda.

In line with the Fifth Transformative Consumer Research Conference held at Villanova University, USA, in 2015, we chaired a dialogical track that involved seven international researchers working on “alternative food system.” Among many other subjects that emerged from brainstorming, three overarching themes were identified as significantly important for furthering research on “alternative” consumption and well-being. Manna, Ulusoy, and Batat explore the meanings behind alternative food consumption and discuss the role of ideology and anti- and post-sociocultural structures in shaping AFC meanings. Peter, Batat, and Ulusoy propose to rethink “literacy” in the adoption of AFC and offer a framework that represents a blueprint in the definition of literacy considering the adoption of other sustainable alternative behaviors (e.g. vegetarian diet, car pooling, recycling). Finally, Vicdan, Batat, and Hong explore social class dynamics in AFC. The three essays suggest potential areas of research with a focus on alternative modes of consumption and well-being and contribute to the theoretical conceptualization in marketing theory.