The official Soviet ideology rejected most aspects of marketing, and yet there were marketing specialists in the Soviet Union, mostly in ministries, research institutes, and state enterprises involved with foreign trade. This article focuses on the development of marketing thought in the Soviet Union during the period 1961 to 1991, when the Soviet leadership was striving to increase Soviet exports, to push state enterprises to greater efficiency, and to deliver a higher standard of living. We report on the 1976 founding of the Marketing Section of the USSR Chamber of Commerce, and introduce eight early contributors to marketing thought. With the coming of perestroika and the end of the USSR, several early contributors continued to teach marketing and to publish marketing guides. We tell of the preparation and 1980 publication of the first Soviet edition of Philip Kotler’s Marketing Management.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse innovations in education from the point of view of product content and markets selected. Emerging market economies face a number of problems many of which are closely linked to and dependent upon the effectiveness of higher professional education. External environment changes, such as the formation of knowledge economy, globalisation, changes in the educational needs of consumers as well as new technological advances and growing competition require a different scale of innovations in higher education.Design/methodology/approachThe authors provide research results generated by three waves of expert interviews and several surveys.FindingsEconomies in transition set special and very challenging tasks to the higher education system. It needs to be flexible enough to provide high quality services to meet the changing needs of a transition economy and still be able to carry our its social and humanitarian functions. A strategic marketing approach can be useful to implement the necessary transformations within higher education and develop innovations in the content and delivery of educational services to satisfy a variety of stakeholders of a university and facilitate positive developments in the society.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a gap between how universities perceive their main functions in a transition economy and what government and society expects from them.Practical implicationsExport of education and other forms of internationalisation are very important for universities in transition economies. Unless linked to the university development strategy, internationalisation has little impact on the programmes' quality and will remain élite in character.Originality/valueThe paper combines conceptual issues (such as educational service definition) and practical aspects such as new competencies needed, transformation management and internationalisation strategy development all linked together by the needs of transition economies.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to document the first major step in the dissemination of modern marketing knowledge in the Soviet Union, the publication of a heavily censored, translated, unauthorized edition of Kotler's Marketing Management in Moscow in 1980. Kotler and his books in Russian translation have continued to inform how Russian marketers understand and implement marketing. Design/methodology/approach -The research approach was historical, based on close comparison of texts; research in the USA and in Russia on the historical context; a comprehensive compilation of Kotler books translated into the Russian language; and interviews with key participants in the book's preparation. Findings -The Soviet edition of Marketing Management was widely read by Soviet foreign trade experts and guided training for Soviet foreign trade enterprise managers in the 1980s. Kotler's book was the first -and, for a decade, the only -book on modern marketing in the Russian language. The story of the book's selection, censorship, publication, and impact provide insights into Soviet thinking about marketing and trade, and about post-Soviet readiness to adopt modern marketing. Originality/value -This paper presents for the first time the story behind the translation, censorship, and publication of Kotler's Marketing Management in the Soviet Union. It documents subsequent Kotler books published in the Soviet Union/Russia and how they shaped Kotler's reputation there.

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