Abstract
This paper revisits methodological debates in marketing theory, tracing the progression from Sidney Levy’s work on symbolic consumption to the Hunt–Anderson empiricist–relativist debate. We argue that this debate rests on a category error: marketing has been misclassified as either a science or an interpretive discipline. Drawing on contemporary practice theory, we reconceptualize marketing as a professional practice oriented toward creating and managing exchange relationships within cultural contexts. This perspective resolves the Hunt–Anderson stalemate, clarifies the epistemological foundations of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) and Transformative Consumer Research (TCR), and generates distinct research questions and methods. Through comparative exemplars, we show how practice-based approaches reveal mechanisms obscured by existing frameworks. We conclude by outlining methodological and managerial implications, emphasizing practice-based knowledge as contextual, action-oriented, and cumulatively developable
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DOI
10.20429/jamt.2026.130104
Publication Date
6-2026
First Page
36
Last Page
50
Recommended Citation
LeMay, S. A., & Svendsen, M. (2026). Marketing as practice: Resolving the Hunt-Anderson stalemate through practice theory. Journal of Applied Marketing Theory, 13(1), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.20429/jamt.2026.130104