Fukuyama's End Of History Thesis: Are Western Marketing Theories The End Point Of Marketing Theory Evolution?

This paper is an exploratory literature review of western management and marketing philosophies which are increasingly dominating the theory and practice across the world. Applying Fukuyama’s argument that western liberal democracy is the end point of political history to management and marketing philosophies, this paper examines whether western marketing and management theories are the final outcome of marketing and management evolution that can be universally accepted and practiced. A review of the current literature relating to the globalization debate suggests that globalization recognizes both the differences and the similarities in countries that should be taken into account in appropriately approaching business across borders. Since developing countries have differing socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, this reality provides a justification for investigating whether western marketing and management philosophies are deemed appropriate in the context of developing countries. An examination of the trends in developing countries, such as India and China, in the development and application of indigenous management theories provides a basis for arguing that western marketing and management philosophies may not be the final point of marketing and management evolution in some developing countries. Several research questions are raised in this paper for further exploration and it aims to stimulate debate on the current state of marketing theory evolution

Exploring subsistence marketplaces through a feminist perspective

Extant literature in the field of subsistence marketplaces adopts a gender-neutral framing of marketplace exchanges despite the overwhelming experience of disadvantage faced by women relative to men as a consequence of patriarchal structures. The authors employ feminist perspectives to render visible constructions of power inequities. First, the authors employ a gendered lens to revisit the topics and data in four published papers in the field of subsistence marketplaces, revealing new questions for future research to answer as well as opportunities to reimagine policy responses. Second, they demonstrate how a gendered analysis was conducted in a primary research study with 21 men and women involved in microfinance programs in rural South India. The findings reveal that gender is a social construction that can be “done and undone,” to transform unequal power relations between men and women in subsistence marketplace exchanges. Several implications for theory and marketing practice are then provided

Explications of political market orientation and political brand orientation using the resource-based view of the political party

Abstract This paper adopts the resource-based view of the firm as a platform foran examination of three important political party capabilities: proactive politicalmarket orientation, responsive political market orientation, and political brandorientation. We develop a theoretical argument outlining the importance of thecomplementarity between these capabilities. The approach taken illustrates thelinks between political market orientation, using what we label as responsivepolitical market orientation, proactive political market orientation, and politicalbrand orientation by building on the marketing literature. We suggest that ourtreatment of political market orientation is important in helping to understandbetter its role within the resource-based view of the party. Further, it also aides inunderstanding political market orientation and branding in political marketing byparties within the context of competitive strategies and electoral performance

The role of online profiling, service quality, satisfaction and loyalty in developing a CRM capability: propositions and considerations

The Internet has the ability to profile online customers to develop effective customer relationship management (CRM) strategies for e-commerce that requires interaction and coordination between various resources within an organization. However, limited research exists in understanding CRM as an outcome of the interaction between various resources, as well as an organizational capability. This paper applies the Resource Based View of the firm to propose an integrated framework in the management of a CRM capability and suggests that this capability comprises managing the interactions between recently developed concepts such as online-profiling, service quality, satisfaction and loyalty

Salespeople\u27s learning by doing and pricing strategy

Understanding the salespeople’s dynamic learning process is critical in effective sales force management. Particularly, the ability to understand the customer intimately is critical in facilitating sales people develop capabilities that allow them set prices that best meet the needs of the customer and the company objectives. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies structurally modelling salespeople’s learning by doing. We develop a Bayesian learning framework to capture salespeople’s learning by doing. In doing so, we argue that for sales organizations who delegate pricing authority to sales people, it is imperative that they understanding how their sales people learn by doing. Our framework allows us to estimate; 1) salespeople’s learning from successful and failed cases separately; and 2) salespeople’s prior skills, (i.e. their skills when they first join the firm) and potential skills (i.e. the ultimate skills that salespeople potentially can reach through learning by doing). We illustrate our approach by analysing historical transaction data of a large multinational software company. We argue that understanding of sales people learn by doing is critical in understanding customer facing strategies including pricing

Knowledge Integration and Competitiveness: a Longitudinal Study of an Industry Cluster

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how – and whether – members of an industry cluster share knowledge through networking as a means to improving competitive advantage and, in particular, whether trust is present in the knowledge-sharing process. Design/methodology/approach – The research involved three surveys utilizing a relationship marketing orientation (RMO) that were conducted at intervals (in 2004, 2008 and 2010) in addition to interviews with key cluster members, which were also conducted over a seven-year period. Findings – Knowledge sharing and integration were found to mediate the relationship between RMO and competitive advantage in 2004 and 2010 but not in 2008. Lower mean scores for trust were also found in 2008. Research limitations/ implications – The limitations are that the respondent numbers were small. It is recommended that one more survey is conducted in 2013 to determine whether the interventions reported here, the recruitment of new cluster staff and the continuing growth of the cluster, influence the comparative results over time. Practical implications – Knowledge sharing and collaboration within industry clusters requires active and discerning facilitation, particularly where new members are concerned. Originality/value – The paper adds value to the current research on industry clusters and knowledge sharing as surveys were conducted over a seven-year period that tracked changes as the cluster grew. The findings highlight the necessity of focusing on member relationships/collaboration during times of growth and change

Promoting internationalisation of the curriculum, critical thinking and the T-shaped business graduate in the post Global Financial Crisis age

As the world recovers from the global financial crisis (GFC), business schools and aspiring business graduates must critically reflect on the development of professional managers to operate effectively in the twenty first century. Business graduates will need to be more resilient, flexible and able to adapt and respond to changing business cycles in a globally integrated and socially aware business environment. Simultaneously, business schools will need to emphasize on facilitating the development of key skills for business graduates to succeed within this paradigm. This paper examines the critical challenges facing the twenty first century business graduate and the implications for business education. It comments on issues that graduates and educators in business schools must focus upon to develop not only effective but transformational business leaders of the future

Implementing competitive strategies: the role of responsive and proactive market orientations

This study seeks to draw on the strategy implementation approach and the resource-based view of the firm (RB theory) to investigate the relationships among competitive strategies (i.e. differentiation and cost-leadership), responsive market orientation (RMO), proactive market orientation (PMO) and firm performance. The purpose is to show that competitive strategies have a significant effect on market orientation and market orientation has a significant effect on firm performance. The paper designed a mail-survey that was sent to senior executives, which resulted in 189 usable surveys. Data were analysed using partial least squares (PLS) to test the hypotheses. The findings show that both competitive strategies influence RMO and PMO, which then influence firm performance. However, the results show that differentiation strategy has a stronger influence on RMO and PMO than cost-leadership strategy, and that PMO has a stronger influence on performance than RMO. The study examined one set of capabilities (RMO and PMO); research opportunities exist for identifying other firm capabilities (e.g. organisational learning) and their relationships with competitive strategies. Strategy implementation is a valid route to firm performance. Therefore, marketing managers must simultaneously develop competitive strategies and RMO and PMO to obtain increased firm performance outcomes. The study conceptualises market orientation as RMO and PMO, and suggests that this treatment of market orientation is important in understanding its role in the competitive strategies of firms and consequent firm performance

Explications of political market orientation and political brand orientation via the resource based view of the political party

This paper adopts the resource-based view of the firm as a platform for an examination of three important political party capabilities: proactive political market orientation, responsive political market orientation, and political brand orientation. We develop a theoretical argument outlining the importance of the complementarity between these capabilities. The approach taken illustrates the links between political market orientation, using what we label as responsive political market orientation, proactive political market orientation, and political brand orientation by building on the marketing literature. We suggest that our treatment of political market orientation is important in helping to understand better its role within the resource-based view of the party. Further, it also aides in understanding political market orientation and branding in political marketing by parties within the context of competitive strategies and electoral performance