Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2019

Abstract

Thirty-five years ago, there was a special issue of the Journal of Marketing in Fall, 1983 concerning whether marketing is a science and what role theory plays in a marketing science. In that issue the following articles concerned with the definition of Marketing and its role in business appeared:

  • Shelby Hunt asked the question of whether a general theory of marketing is even possible and what such a theory would be like if such a theory existed.
  • Robert Bartels noted that marketing has been defined as having theory and practice, specialization and generalization, as well as established interests and global expectations over the years. In other words are we primarily practitioners or are we primarily scholars.
  • John Howard notes that marketing provides a guide for strategic and operational planning by focusing on the customer which maximizes shareholder wealth.
  • George D. and Robin Wensley emphasized marketing’s role in creating competitive advantage and associated strategic issues to create a new paradigm for marketing.

Other articles were more directly related to the issue of marketing and science:

  • Rohit Deshpande was concerned with marketing scientists being preoccupied with hypothesis testing rather than theory building and recommends using qualitative methods to build theories followed by using quantitative methods to test the validity of those theories.
  • Paul Anderson wondered if marketing should be more scientific by being committed to theory-driven paradigms producing programmatic research to solve significant problems.
  • Finally, Paul Peter and Jerry Olson answer the question ‘Is Science marketing?’ by claiming that science is a special case of marketing. They note that marketing scientists create theories which are like products with channels of distribution, promotion, and prices. Marketing scientists who create these theories have objectives for doing so that fall into three types: noble, curiosity and self-serving.

The question here is: Is marketing a science and if so what makes it scientific?

In the end of all discussions asking ‘Is marketing a science?’ we must recognize there is no set of criteria for recognizing science from nonscience (Laudan, 1982). However if marketing scientists create useful knowledge, they have answered the question in the marriage of marketing theory and practice.

Journal of Marketing, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Autumn) 1983

Laudan, Larry (1965), "On the Impossibility of Crucial Falsifying Experiment: Gruntaum on The Cuhemian Argument'," Philosophy of Science. 32 (July), 295-9.

About the Authors

Michael Latta

Professor of Marketing

Wall College of Business

Coastal Carolina University

Wall 301-D

Conway, SC

mlatta@coastal.edu

Ismet Anitsal, Ph.D.

Faye Halfacre Moore Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Marketing Tennessee Tech University College of Business

Department of Economics, Finance, and Marketing

ianitsal@tntech.edu

Michael McCall, Ph.D.

NAMA Endowed Professor of Hospitality Business

School of Hospitality Business

Eli Broad College of Business

Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI 48823

mmccall@msu.edu

Stephen A. LeMay

Associate Professor of Marketing and Logistics

University of West Florida

11000 University Parkway

Building 53, Room 104

Pensacola, FL 32514

Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Logistics

Mississippi State University

slemay@uwf.edu

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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