Reconnecting Marketing to Markets

Abstract

Abstract This book proposes a novel research agenda for marketing to reconnect with markets. The historical link between marketing and markets, prevalent until the 1960s, gave way to a view of marketing as addressing generic rather than economic exchange. By focusing on generic exchange, marketing portrays itself as portable set of tools applicable to markets and non-markets alike. This book challenges this view, proposing instead a close examination of what makes exchanges economic in nature, and how economic exchanges aggregate to produce markets. By re-establishing the connection between marketing and markets, this book argues that marketing produces markets: marketing practices and theories play a significant role in the production of markets and in the configuration of the entities and phenomena that populate markets. The book brings together scholars from the fields of marketing, organization studies, economic sociology, and science and technology studies, who share an interest in markets as socio-technical constructions and the performative role of academic and lay theories in producing economic orderings. The chapters cover a wide range of empirical settings including consumption, traditional and online retailing, product development, category management, trading zones and obstacles to exchange, business associations and political actors, liberalized markets, loyalty schemes and competition rules, and Fair Trade goods. These chapters illustrate the variety of agents, beyond buyers and sellers, that partake in the construction of markets such as the specialist trade press, business associations, regulatory bodies, and NGOs.

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