Autobiographical reflections. Part II : risk, tenacity and philosophies of research.

urpose This paper reviews autobiographical accounts of thought leadership in the marketing discipline and draws out pertinent insights for senior, mid-career and junior academics alike. Design/methodology/approach This narrative is based on a close reading of the pertinent material. Findings To be a pioneer in marketing takes considerable hard work, tenacity, serendipity, and a high tolerance for risk. Originality/value This manuscript can be used by junior scholars to legitimize the challenges they pose to more established colleagues. It helps contribute to the reversal of extant power relations in academic practice

Origins of marketing thought in Britain

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to document contributions to the early study and teaching of marketing at one of the first universities in Britain to do so and, in that way, to contribute to the literature about the history of marketing thought. Given that the first university business program in Britain was started in 1902, at about the same time as the earliest business programs in America, the more specific purpose of this paper was to explore whether or not the same influences were shared by pioneer marketing educators on both sides of the Atlantic. Design/methodology/approach An historical method is used including a biographical approach. Primary source materials included unpublished correspondence (letterbooks), lecture notes, seminar minute-books, course syllabi and exams, minutes of senate and faculty meetings, university calendars, and other unpublished documents in the William James Ashley Papers at the University of Birmingham. Findings The contributions of William James Ashley and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham to the early twentieth century study and teaching of marketing are documented. Drawing from influences similar to those on pioneer American marketing scholars, Ashley used an historical, inductive, descriptive approach to study and teach marketing as part of what he called “business economics”. Beginning in 1902, Ashley taught his students about a relatively wide range of marketing strategy decisions focusing mostly on channels of distribution and the functions performed by channel intermediaries. His teaching and the research of his students shares much with the early twentieth century commodity, institutional, and functional approaches that dominated American marketing thought. Research limitations/implications William James Ashley was only one scholar and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham was only one, although widely acknowledged as the first, of a few early twentieth century British university programs in business. This justifies future research into the possible contributions to marketing knowledge made by other programs such as those at the University of Manchester (1903), University of Liverpool (1910), and University of London (1919). Originality/value This paper adds an important chapter to the history of marketing thought which has been dominated by American pioneer scholars, courses, literature, and ideas

Hyper-power, the Marketing Concept and Consumer as ‘Boss’

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

Modern Pioneers in Marketing: Autobiographical Sketches by Leading Scholars

Purpose This paper aims to introduce a special issue of the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing which includes autobiographical sketches by leading scholars in the history of marketing and consumer research. Design/methodology/approach A brief review of the (auto)biographical tradition in marketing scholarship leads to a commentary on the four accounts in this issue. Findings Highlights of the four portraits are presented and insights into their authors’ lives and careers are offered. Originality/value The authors hope this introductory article whets readers’ appetites to learn more about the four contributors whose careers and personal lives are explicated for their consumption

Autobiographical Reflections Part II: Risk, Tenacity and Philosophies of Research

urpose This paper reviews autobiographical accounts of thought leadership in the marketing discipline and draws out pertinent insights for senior, mid-career and junior academics alike. Design/methodology/approach This narrative is based on a close reading of the pertinent material. Findings To be a pioneer in marketing takes considerable hard work, tenacity, serendipity, and a high tolerance for risk. Originality/value This manuscript can be used by junior scholars to legitimize the challenges they pose to more established colleagues. It helps contribute to the reversal of extant power relations in academic practice