Briefly I argue that there are at least two respects in which the traditional marketing management literature is deficient. Firstly it underplays the role of context and contingency. The standard marketing text focuses on the marketing of fast moving consumer goods in a developed economy. Most crucially we need to think about more fundamental ways of classifying contexts in order to try to understand how they affect markets. The second omission is even more problematic.
Marketing management is portrayed as a technical issue.
Marketing decisions aren't just made by some computer and implemented by machines. They are socially and politically created and enacted. Yet there is almost no research that examinees what marketing mangers actually do. Such research has begun to emerge in general management and this has implications for what I prefer to call the Management of Marketing. But I believe that a radical re-examination of the nature of current research needs to take place if marketing academics are to live up to their oft espoused goal of being an applied discipline dedicated to helping practising marketing managers.