A History of Historical Research in Marketing

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to review historical research in marketing. Because of space limitations, this review is more a chronicle of what has been published about historical research in marketing than a critical historical analysis, hopefully providing the reader with a roadmap to further reading on historical topics of interest. Scholars in a wide range of disciplines have published historical research about marketing and have done so in various publications, many outside what would be considered the 'marketing literature'. Except for some overall frequencies of publication reported in this introduction, this review has focused mostly on historical research published in marketing periodicals and in books. The discipline of marketing emerged early in the twentieth century as a branch of applied economics strongly influenced by the German Historical School and its offspring, the American Institutional School (Jones and Monieson, 1990). Thus, from its beginnings the academic study of marketing was influenced by an historical perspective. However, for economists studying marketing at the turn of the twentieth century, history was a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Marketing economists during that era studied the histories of marketing practices carried out in industries and by firms in order to discover marketing functions and principles. The earliest university courses in marketing in North America were taught in 1902/03 when the Universities of Illinois, Michigan and California offered the 3

From price theory to marketing management: Danish contributions 1930‐1960

“…This implies focus on marketing as viewed from the sellers’ perspective, research and teaching organized around the notion of marketing mix variables, and a dominating managerial perspective in general. But in contradistinction to the general view that marketing developed from the German Historical School (Jones and Monieson, 1990; Heeler and Chung, 1993; Jones, 2010) which seems to be the case for American marketing theory, the Copenhagen School had its particular point of departure in the “new” microeconomics. Hunt (2011) attempts to reposition Chamberlin and monopolistic competition in the American history of marketing thought.…”

On the intersection of marketing history and marketing theory

“…Historical research on marketing and marketing-related subjects is done by two groups of scholars, marketing professors in business schools and business history professors in history departments. As Jones (2010) discusses in detail, marketing historians distinguish between historical research that focuses on marketing practice (e.g. histories of advertising, retailing, and specific firms) and the history of marketing thought (e.g.…”

“…Jones (2010) divides the works on marketing history into three eras: ‘Recording the facts’ (1930–59); ‘Foundations of the new marketing history’ (1960–79); and ‘The new marketing history’ (1980–present). He identifies over 1600 publications devoted to marketing history between 1930 and 2009, with over half being published since 2000.…”

“…How, then, do they intersect? Jones (2010: 67) provides a succinct answer: ‘We must know where we’ve been in order to understand where we are.’ That is, in order to gain a full understanding of our concepts and theories, we need to know who developed them, when they were developed, the contexts in which they were developed, the purposes for which they were developed, the industries that used them (and often created them), and the constraints under which they were developed. History, then, can lead to a better understanding of extant theories and the development of new theories.…”

What’s so funny about marketing? Twentieth-century cartoonist portrayals of US marketing

“…The literature on the historical development of marketing thought generally takes a marketing insider’s perspective on marketing (Jones, 2010; Shaw and Jones, 2005). While this is an important perspective, the question of how marketing is perceived by those outside of the field is also important.…”