On Making Marketing Science More Scientific: Role of Orientations, Paradigms, Metaphors, and Puzzle Solving

Abstract

Marketing thinking is profoundly dominated by the empiricist world view and the logical empiricist paradigm. This article argues that marketing can be enriched by opening up to alternative paradigms that capture subjective experiences, conflicts, and liberating forces.

Structural antecedents of institutional entrepreneurship in industrial networks: A critical realist explanation

“…The 1983 Journal of Marketing special issue on "Marketing theory", for instance, explicitly emphasized alternative perspectives on marketing. Since Bartels (1968) seminal call for more consideration of behavioral and sociological elements in a 'general theory of marketing', other marketing theorists as well have criticized marketing's "over-reliance on micro-economics" (Arndt, 1985;Cunningham & Sheth, 1983). From the ensuing anti-positivist disputes, realism arguably arose triumphant, especially in industrial marketing (Easton, 2002).…”

Trust, power and transaction costs in B2B exchanges — A socio-economic approach

“…However, since the 1980s a number of researchers have attempted to introduce non-positivistic research approaches to the marketing discipline, which, they argue, provide additional insight into neglected aspects of marketing (Arndt, 1985;Hudson & Ozanne, 1988;Lowe, Carr, Thomas, & Watkins-Mathys, 2005) such as the contextual influences on organisational behaviour in B2B marketing (Arndt, 1985;Hakansonn & Snehota, 1997). Lowe et al (2005), for example, note that in their study of B2B relationships, Hakansonn and Snehota (1997) have identified the importance that the contextual nature of the interaction between organisational actors, which involves socially constructed meaning as well as the construction of identities, plays in understanding organisational behaviour.…”

Knowledge-based sales management strategy and the grafting metaphor: Implications for theory and practice

“…For example, metaphors have been shown to be useful in the context of advertising (Ang & Lim, 2006;McQuarrie & Phillips, 2005), marketing communications (Bremer & Lee, 1997), marketing management (Hunt & Menon, 1995;Winsor, 1995), marketing research (Cornelissen, 2003), marketing science (Arndt, 1985), marketing theory construction (Zaltman, Lemasters, & Heffring, 1982), and sales message creation (Boozer, Wyld, & Grant, 1990). However, despite the extensive use of metaphors in theory development in marketing and business strategy, the full potential of metaphors and metaphoric transfer is yet unrealized (Hunt & Menon, 1995).…”