Extension in the Subjectifying Power of Marketing Ideology in Organizations

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the managerialistic ideology of marketing theory by focusing on ''customerism''-the customer-oriented managerialism that characterizes marketing. As an ideology, customerism has made it possible for marketing to discursively compete with different management fields in directing the management of organizational members. We base our notion of managerialism in Foucauldian works on power and make a distinction between three forms of power/managerialism: sovereign, disciplinary, and pastoral. Our analysis displays how the forms of power underpinning the customeristic ideology inherent to marketing theory have changed over time, thereby contributing to the reproduction and extension of that ideology. In particular, we show how different articulations of marketing discourse have developed the managerialism of marketing in such a way that today (1) organizational members around the world are meant to be affected by it and (2) it is meant to affect these organizational members in a deeper way.

“Part of the University Lexicon”: Marketing and Ontario Universities, 1990-2013

“…Most notably, we draw on Skålén, Fellesson, and Fougère (2008), who marshal critical theory and Foucault's works on discourse and knowledge/power to demonstrate how marketing functions as a form of disciplinary power. Their study forms part of a nascent body of works emerging since the mid2000s that draws on Foucauldian theory to analyze marketing practices, knowledge, and institutions (Fougère & Skålén, 2013;Leitch & Motion, 2007;Tadajewski, 2011;Varman, Saha, & Skålén, 2011).…”

The alternative “Marketing Revolution”

“…It destabilises the idea that the pursuit of goodwill or relationship formation was not a feature of business practice before the 1970s. Overall, this paper will underscore the effects of infra-power within marketing organisations, thereby deepening our knowledge of these capillary power relations (Fougère and Skålén, 2012). Connected to this, we introduce a new element from Foucault's lexicon for scholars to utilise in their efforts to connect the punitive, productive and pleasurable power relations involved in the extension of marketing practice and ossified within its theoretical and conceptual supports.…”

“…It maximises their "labour-power" (Foucault, 2015) whilst drawing an "endless extraction of knowledge" from each operative (Foucault, 2006, p. 77). Tosdal, for the purposes of this paper, provides us with detailed insight into the disciplinary politics of the sales organisation as it was envisaged in the first half of the twentieth century (see also Fougère and Skålén, 2012).…”

The transformed identity of a banking corporation's employees, 1960s-1980s

“…To enrich our understanding of these issues, the current article examines the ways in which the self‐identity of volunteering bank employees was constructed by the dynamic interplay between the normative management ideas and the advanced marketing approaches adopted by the bank during the period in question. Whereas others (Hochschild, ; Kunda, ; Fougère & Skålén, ) have studied managers' efforts to shape organizational subjects in ways directly related to the workers' job requirements, the current article traces the emergence of a new management discourse that attempted to shape the employees as ‘organization members’ by first making them ‘community members’, such that their identification with the firm and with their individual job requirements were to be mediated by their commitment to the community at large.…”