Theoryintopractice: meditations on cultures of accountability and interdisciplinarity in marketing research

Abstract

Nowadays managerial culture is an increasingly critical ingredient of successful knowledge production. For some scholars and practitioners the apparent disconnect between funders, users and researchers as sites of production and consumption comes with costs to the marketing academy and its various stakeholder communities. Closing the perceived gap between theory and practice assumes the proportions of a heroic struggle between the sacred and the profane; between the abstract high-mindedness of theory and the lowly but useful deeds of practice. Various perspectives are offered by way of analysing the origins of this gap, as illustrated in the recent special issue of Marketing Intelligence and Planning (2004). The academy organises itself as if systems of accountability and accessibility in knowledge making are clearly understood and enforceable through the construct 'relevance'. We argue that the academy needs to better understand the inescapable part it plays in circulating unhelpful discourses of marketing theory and practice, and the imputed differences between them it authorises. We offer an alternative understanding that seeks to move the discipline beyond the isolationist stance unwittingly constructed by the problematic dualism of 'theory -practice', pointing to the need to better understand the making of marketing knowledge products, and the interdisciplinary social practices increasingly required of them.

Articulating consumers through practices of vernacular creativity

“…There has been growing scholarly investment in practice-related research programmes, especially in strategy (Chia & Holt, 2006;Chia and MacKay, 2007;Gherardi, 2000;Jarzabkowski, 2004Jarzabkowski, , 2008Jarzabkowski, Balogun & Seidl, 2007;Whittington, 2004Whittington, , 2006Whittington, , 2007 where there has been a move from process as the voice of implementation towards activity-based views of "the detailed processes and practices which constitute the day-today activities of organisational life" (Johnson, Melin and Whittington, 2003: 3). Similar investment has been made in accounting (Ahrens & Chapman, 2007), management studies (Fox, 2000;Handley, Sturdy, Fincham & Clark, 2006;Roberts, 2006;Wenger, 1998) and marketing management (Araujo, 2007;Brownlie, 1991;Brownlie and Saren, 1997;Brownlie, Ferguson and Hewer, 2007;Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2007;Kjellberg, 2008). This flurry of publications has occured at a time when representations of the interests of the audience for management research play strongly to the hardy perennial of 'relevance' and what is to be done for it to become less removed from the needs of managerial actors through focusing on the micro activities of managers who otherwise are left "bereft of insights, let alone guidelines for action" (Johnson, Melin & Whittington, 2003: 5).…”

‘Is there a gap in the market, and is there a market in the gap?’ How advertising planning performs markets

“…The link between theory and practice is often couched in terms of academic knowledge's impact on firm performance (Brownlie, Hewer, & Ferguson, 2007). A number of authors have exposed differences in values between academia and practice (Brennan, 2004), suggested theory-practice bridges in the guise of marketing engineering (Lilien, Rangaswamy, van Bruggen, & Wierenga, 2002), or even challenged the notion that practitioners can learn from academia (November, 2004).…”

Relating the curriculum to marketing competence: a conceptual framework

“…The apparent gap (or indeed gaps as there are more than one) between academics and practitioners' notions of marketing have been researched and discussed by commentators such as Piercy (2002), Simkin (2002), McDonald (2003), Brennan (2004), Blythe (2006), Brownlie et al (2007) and Tapp and Hughes (2008). Nevertheless, it is worth very briefly rehearsing the arguments as they are fundamental to revising the curriculum.…”