Download Do we really understand business marketing? Getting beyond the

Do we really understand business marketing?
Getting beyond the RM and BM matrimony
Jaqueline Pels
Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Kristian Möller
Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland, and
Michael Saren
Leicester University, Leicester, UK
Abstract
Purpose – A large number of researchers and marketing textbooks see business marketing dominantly from the relationship marketing perspective.
One can even talk about a “matrimony” of these domains; “RM ¼ BM”. The Contemporary Marketing Practices studies, however, provide clear
evidence of the coexistence of various marketing practices but offer no supporting theoretical rationale for these findings. The purpose of this paper is
to answer the question whether business marketing and relationship marketing, when broadly defined to include all relational-interactional
perspectives, are necessarily wedded to each other.
Design/methodology/approach – A metatheoretical analysis was conducted to identify the contributions and limitations of the current research
approaches to business marketing and a configurational approach for marketing (CAM) was developed, providing theoretical explanation for the
empirical findings versus relationship dominance dilemma.
Findings – The metatheoretical analysis showed that research into business marketing relationships is not monolithic; that each tradition is useful for
specific purposes, domains and activities; and that none helps understand why there are multiple ways in which firms relate to their markets. A
conceptual CAM framework was developed that allows one to identify possible configurational marketing profiles (i.e. identifying different equivalently
valid ways of relating to a business environment).
Research limitations/implications – It is contended that the configuration approach for marketing permits other configurations to co-exist beyond
the RM-BM matrimony. CAM provides a conceptual framework that can host the “puzzling” empirical results of the contemporary marketing practices
studies.
Practical implications – The CAM frame suggests that managers should carefully examine the internal logic of their marketing-related configuration.
Performance should be enhanced if the three elements – managerial frame of reference, organization/environment relationship, marketing mode – are
coherent.
Originality/value – The configurational approach for marketing helps one to understand why firms relate to the business marketing environment with
a multiplicity of marketing modes, showing that the BM-RM matrimony is but one possible configuration.
Keywords Configuration management, Business-to-business marketing, Relationship marketing
Paper type Conceptual paper
the relationship between a firm and its environment. The key
question is whether business marketing (BM) and relationship
marketing (RM), when broadly-defined to include all
relational-interaction perspectives, are necessarily wedded to
each other: i.e. does BM ¼ RM? We argue that different
research schools have diverse readings of the business
marketing environment, and that each definition of the
environment leads to a specific suggestion in terms of
marketing practice and that the relationship marketing
approach is only one possibility. By focusing business
marketing predominantly on the relationship marketing
option we have voluntarily put blinkers on our theory
development.
Going all the way back Wroe Alderson’s (1957) seminal
work, which led to the so-called “marketing management”
school, marketing organisations were conceptualised as “the
entities which operate in the marketing environment”.
Although the various authors in the managerial school of
marketing recognised the presence of exogenous variables –
typically as macro or micro environmental factors – they
treated them as uncontrollable factors, within which
Introduction
Marketing scholars have used many theoretical approaches to
examine business marketing which, despite its maturity,
remains a diverse and complex domain. In order to identify
the contributions and limitations of the current research
approaches to business marketing what is needed is a
metatheoretical analysis which, as yet, does not exist. It is
within this gap that our paper is positioned. We aim to
evaluate the insights and tools that the various research
traditions contribute to business marketing and, specifically,
to focus on how they address the context or environment
where firms operate and what they present and assume about
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0885-8624.htm
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
24/5/6 (2009) 322–336
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0885-8624]
[DOI 10.1108/08858620910966219]
322
Do we really understand business marketing?
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
marketing functions and practices must operate. This view is
not restricted to the marketing management school, in their
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science article “Revisiting
marketing’s lawlike generalizations”, Sheth and Sisodia
(1999, p. 72) state, “. . .more than most other fields of
scientific inquiry, marketing is context dependant.”
A brief historical review shows a clear trend of addressing
business marketing from a relationship perspective. During
the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the marketing management
school dominant position in business marketing was
challenged by the relationship marketing approach, which
drew heavily from services marketing research and the
Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group
(Anderson et al., 1994; Håkansson, 1982). They all
suggested that the relationship between an active buyer and
an active seller should form the key focus of analysis.
Understanding the dynamics of relationships and advocating
mutually rewarding relationships, often invoking a marriage
metaphor, became the core of the normative programme of
the Relationship School (Grönroos, 1997; Gummesson,
1997; Christopher et al., 1991, 2002). This is confirmed by
recent content analysis of the major business marketing
journals (Dant and Lapuka, 2008; LaPlaca, 2008) shows that
the share of articles dealing with relationships (and to a
considerably lesser degree of networks) has increased
consistently since 2000 whereas the relative number of
articles on buying behavior, selling and sales management,
and segmentation declined since the early 1990s.
On the other hand, the contemporary marketing practices
(CMP)[1] studies provide clear evidence that over 30 per cent
of companies operating in business markets are practicing
“transactional marketing” and another 30 per cent a
combination of “transactional” and some form of “relational
marketing” (Coviello et al., 2002; Pels et al., 2004).
Additionally, a series of independent studies (i.e. Pels and
Snehota, 1995; Binks and Ennew, 1996; Benson-Rea, 2005;
Lefaix-Durand, 2008) also show that, in many industries, the
process that actually takes place is one of coexistence of
various marketing practices.
In the remainder of this paper we interrogate and critique
the assumptions behind the BM ¼ RM matrimony from both
empirical and theoretical perspectives. We offer an alternative:
the configurational approach, which we argue is robust in
theory and more consistent with the empirical evidence of
firms’ practice.
Because of the many implications related to this alternative
conceptualization, two are of interest to this paper. First, it
recognizes that managers might not “just adapt to” but might
enact their environments. This opens the way to
understanding why the empirical studies find a plurality of
marketing practices (for example, Coviello et al., 2002).
Second, it also helps understand why academics belonging to
diverse research traditions describe the environment
differently.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First,
we carry out a comparison of the major research traditions in
business marketing which shows that that there are multiple
interpretations of how these environments operate. This is
summarized in Table I. Next we introduce the configurational
approach which is based organization and strategy literature.
We explain how this approach helps us understand that the
relational-interactive perspective is not a response to the
business marketing environment but, rather, one of several
possible strategic types or configurations. Finally we briefly
explore the implications of this beyond the BM ¼ RM
matrimony debate.
Primary research approaches to business
marketing
How to carry out a comparison of research traditions?
In order to expose the contributions and limitations of the
current research approaches to business marketing we need a
so-called metatheoretical analysis[2].
How to carry out a comparison of different research
traditions? We first define a set of descriptive criteria and then
use these to evaluate existing approaches thus creating a
profile of the prototypical characteristics of different
approaches. On the basis of our investigation of several
theoretical comparisons of research traditions within
marketing and management (see Anderson, 1986; Arndt,
1985; Brodie et al., 1997; Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Burton,
2005; Coviello et al., 1997, 2002; Egan, 2008; Gioia and
Pitre, 1990; Mattsson, 1997; Möller, 1992, 1994; Möller and
Halinen, 2000; Möller, 2007; Tikkanen, 1996; Vargo and
Lusch, 2004; Walker and Ruekert, 1987; Wilkie and Moore,
2003) we suggest that attention should be paid to the
following issues when research traditions are compared:
.
Basic goals of the tradition, i.e. what it tries to achieve.
.
View of exchange relationships.
.
Questions asked, i.e. through what kind of questions does
the approach frame its focal phenomena?
.
Disciplinary background, i.e. is the tradition primarily
linked to some cognate disciplines which provide its focus,
or is its momentum driven by social/managerial questions?
.
Key topics/concepts the tradition offers to business
marketing.
.
Level/unit of analysis and contextuality, i.e. how the
tradition addresses the focal phenomenon in terms of its
context/environment.
.
Limitations and “blind spots”.
These dimensions are used in the next section to compare the
key research traditions within business marketing. We do not
intend to judge which research approach is better but to
evaluate the insights and tools they contribute to business
marketing as well as to pinpoint their blind spots. Nor do we
intend to integrate the different theoretical approaches but to
sensitize the research community to the representations these
approaches provide to business marketing, and especially to
how they address the context or environment where the firms
operate, and what they have to say about the relationship
between a firm and its environment.
Selection of the research traditions to be examined
Marketing scholars have used many theoretical approaches to
examine business marketing. There does not exist, however,
any in-depth meta-analysis of the research approaches
covering the complete domain. This sets hurdles for the
selection of the research approaches. There are, nevertheless,
a number of studies into different aspects of business
marketing to facilitate our choice. The most notable ones
are Sheth et al. (1988), Dwyer et al. (1995), Möller (1994)
and Möller and Wilson (1995a, b), Möller and Halinen
(2000), and Ward and Webster (1991). In addition to these
the Journal of Business Research special issue: Contribution of
323
Singular customer relationships
attended by relationship
management personnel and
influenced through other marketing
activities. Dualistic focus:
(i) encounter and event
management, and (ii) life-cycle
management
Relationhip behaviour takes place in
working markets; a “market for
customer relationships” is implicitly
assumed. Relationhips do not
influence markets
How to provide value and perceived
quality for the customer, how to
manage customer encounters, how
to create and manage customer
relationships, how to co-create
value with customers?
Inter-organizational business
relationships characterized by
economical exchange and use of
power. Actors are dependent on one
another and behave reciprocally;
this is partly based on trust and
creates trust. Trust is essential for
relational commitment
Actors’ behaviour is embedded in
the channel environment, which is
seen from a systemic, institutional
perspective. The influence is
reciprocal: the political-economy of
a channel influences the actors and
their relationships and actors’
behaviour influences and
constitutes the channel context
What forms of governance are
efficient for what types of channel
relationships? How is use of power
related to the relationship
efficiency? How does trust evolve
and facilitate relationship
development and commitment?
Primarily organization-toorganization customer
relationships; focus on winning
customer order, i.e. supplier
selection from a customer’s
perspective
Exchange takes place in the context
of independent sellers and
customers and working markets
How to develop an optimal
marketing program based on
customer segmentation and the
understanding of customers’
different buying situations and
decision-making unit? This is the
classical “marketing mix” dilemma
applied to the business marketing
context
View of
relationships
and
environment
Questions
asked
Three interrelated sets of goals:
(i) Understand and explain
interorganizational exchange
behavior and relationship
development at a dyadic level in a
network context; (ii) understand
how nets of relationships between
actors evolve, and (iii) understand
how markets function and evolve
from a network perspective.
Managerial goal: gain a more valid
view of reality through network
theory
Relationships exist between
different types of actors: firms,
government and research agencies,
individual actors; not only goods but
all kinds of resources are exchanged
through relationships. Relationships
are seen as vehicles to access and
control resources and to create new
resources
Environment is seen as networks of
actor relationships. Actor behaviour
is highly embedded, i.e. specific
actions cannot be understood out of
their historical context. Firms learn
and construct their environment
through enactment; the actorenvironment relationship is
reciprocal
How are relationships created and
managed; how do nets of
relationships evolve, how can an
actor manage these relationships
and create a position in a net?
Explain and understand
relationships and their
management. Managerial goal:
provide tools for managing
customer relationships recognizing
the economic and relationship
quality aspects and the life-time
value of a relationship
Theoretical goal: explain
governance structures and dyadic
behavior in channel context
Normative goal: determine efficient
relational forms between channel
members
Interaction and networks
(and NRMb)
Relationship marketing in BM
(MRMa)
Promote the efficiency of marketing
activities through better buyer
behavior-based segmentation and
targeting. Special emphasis on
nested customer segmentation,
offering and sales targeting. Strong
managerial emphasis
Channel relationships
Basic goals
Research
traditions
characteristics Marketing management in BM
Table I Profiles of the business marketing research traditions
Service dominant logic
324
(continued)
How is customer value (co)created;
the role of knowledge and
capabilities (“operant resources”) in
value creation?
Interactive customer-supplier
relationships; both parties can be
active. Exchange can take place in
market or network context
Provide a new perspective on
understanding value creation.
Provide a resource- and value-based
foundation for a unified theory in
marketing. Managerial goal:
provide insights for the role of
customers and distinctive types of
resources (operant/operand) on
value creation
Do we really understand business marketing?
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
325
Most research schools have
fundamental questions; SDL is
actually not an “asking approach”
but a “proposing approach”. Does
not provide a theory of marketing
but a normative perspective how
certain existing schools of thought
should be utilized in value creation.
Silent about the possible incongruity
between value creation in market
context vs network context
Marketer-customer relationship
provides the key focus. Relatively
little emphasis on contextuality;
recently network context is
priorisized. Process perspective
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
Notes: a MRM ¼ market-based relationship marketing; b NRM ¼ network-based relationship marketing
Limitations
and “blind
spots”
Level/unit of
analysis and
contextuality
Customer life-time value, customer
encounters, relationship quality,
internal marketing, empowerment
of personnel, value-co-creation, key
account management. In addition,
to these RM have imported
concepts from the social-exchange
theory: trust, commitment,
cooperation
Goods are distribution mechanisms
for service provision; customer is
always a co-producer of value,
company can only make value
propositions through its offering.
Capabilities/competencies are the
key resources (operant resources)
for both creating value propositions
and rendering value out of them;
thus knowledge and capabilities are
the core source of advantage
Buy-classes, buying center, buying
phases and criteria; nested
segmentation, marketing program,
selling center
Interaction processes, adaptation
and investments into relationships,
actor bonds, resource ties, and
activity chains (ARA framework),
relationship outcomes: efficiency
and effectiveness, sociopsychological outcomes
(expectations, mutuality,
attractiveness, trust, commitment,
satisfaction); nets and networks of
relationships, network positions and
roles; network capabilities
Actor (organization, person), dyadic
Firm, dyadic relationship in channel Individual customer, group or
Primarily seller and buyer
relationship, a net or network).
organizations; in sales management context. Structurization perspective: segment, marketer-client
Transactions are episodes in the
relationship. Little emphasis on
studies also individual sales agents the dyadic behavior and efficient
and in the OBB studies members of forms of governance are influenced contextuality, sometimes the history long-term relationship. Emphasis on
the embeddedness of relationships
by the channel context and dyadic of a relationship is emphasized the buying center. Competitive
in nets and networks, and their
generally handled through
behavior influences the channel
markets assumption; in the OBB
history - no understanding of
context. Well developed theory on “experience”; generally implicit
conscious assumptions about the
present situation without history
assumption about market as the
“environment” in the politicalcontextuality of buying behavior
dominant environmental form
economy approach
(organization, buying criteria and
decision making); clear contingency
perspective.
Network level analysis evidently
Silent about the context of
Silent about customer relationships; Limited studies of the interaction
relationships; implicit assumption of leaves out much of individual level
static
between channel context and
actions. The IMP emphasis on the
dyadic behavior; losing the political- markets. Some “evangelism” in
historic understanding has provided
form of belief & preaching the
economy perspective
strong descriptive tools; this has,
virtuousness of relationship view
however, deterred the development
of more normative network
management theory
Service dominant logic
Key topics/
concepts for
business
marketing
No clear disciplinary background:
early phase a response to
“traditional marketing
management”; later drawing on
consumer behavior applications,
social-exchange theory, and the
interaction approach related to
industrial network approach. Strong
managerial and empirical emphasis
Theoretically a synthetic approach
combining from services &
relationship marketing (themselves
as pot-pourris) and the RBV and its
capabilities (competencies) &
knowledge-based extensions. Also
network theory is mentioned, but
not really utilized
Primarily theory driven, tries to
combine the economic and political
aspects (power, dependency) of
channel relationships. The tradition
relies on (1) transaction cost theory,
(2) social exchange theory, political
economy, power and conflict in
organizational sociology. The TCA
provides the economic-perspective
and the S-E the behavioral
perspective
Bases of power, uses of power and
conflict behavior, interdependence,
goal congruity, decision domains,
environmental influence on dyadic
behavior, transaction-specific
investments, switching costs; trust
and commitment; dyadic
governance, dyad outcomes:
efficiency, satisfaction, relational
norms
Both empirically and theory-driven;
earlier influenced by channels
research, organizational buying
behavior, resource dependency
theory, social exchange theory, and
institutional economics; later by
institutional theory, dynamic
industrial economics, organizational
sociology, and resource-based
theory
Interaction and networks
(and NRMb)
Relationship marketing in BM
(MRMa)
Dualistic background:
(1) theory of monopolistic
competition and the marginal utility
principle
(2) organizational buyer behavior
utilizing social psychology and small
group studies, and management
decision-making approach
Channel relationships
Disciplinary
background
Table I
Research
traditions
characteristics Marketing management in BM
Do we really understand business marketing?
Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Do we really understand business marketing?
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
business-to-business-journals (JBR, 1997) covering the
research published by that date in the IMM (LaPlaca,
1997); JBIM (Johnston and Lewin, 1997); JBIM (Lichtenthal
et al. 1997); and Advances in Business Marketing and
Purchasing (Plank, 1997) and the recent article “The
essence of business marketing theory, research and tactics:
contribution from the Journal of Business-to-Business
Marketing” by Lichtenthal et al. (2008) and commentaries
to this in the same issue by LaPlaca (2008), Dant and Lapuka
(2008), Honeycutt and Thelen (2008), and Malhotra et al.
(2008) are very useful.
Based on this material we selected the following research
traditions for our analysis: Marketing Management School
(MMS); Channels Research Tradition (CRT), Relationship
Marketing (RM – here narrowly defined), the Interaction and
Network Approach (INA) to business marketing, and the
Service Dominant Logic (SDL). This selection is partly
subjective; one could, for example, have included transaction
cost analysis separately, but we have addressed it under the
broader umbrella of the Channels Research. One may also ask
if we are missing the organizational buying behavior and
segmentation studies; for the sake of conciseness these are
included in the Marketing Management School. Although
none of these research approaches is a theoretical monolith,
(they actually overlap quite a bit), they do have important
differences in their basic assumptions, intellectual goals, and
how they frame the exchange relationships and their
environment; in essence in the understanding they provide
of business marketing.
Ginter, 1987; Kotler, 1967, 1971). A key assumption is that
there exist working markets with primarily independent
actors.
Within business marketing the MMS covers several
important themes, especially organizational buyer behavior,
segmentation, product management, especially NPD, and
sales management (LaPlaca, 1997, 2008; Lichtenthal et al.,
1997). The core aspect is the nested character of
organizational buying, involving issues like the structure and
roles in a buying center, the decision making unit in charge of
organizational buying, and research on the types of buying
situations and the choice criteria used in these, and the
processual character of supplier selection. These provided the
foundation for the early business marketing management
(Möller, 1985). Organizational buying behavior informs
customer segmentation, and product and sales management.
In a nutshell, understanding of the organizational buying
behavior was seen to provide the basis for offering planning
involving targeting (developed through segmentation and
product development) and the planning of sales and other
marketing communications activities. The Market Planning for
New Industrial Products book by Choffray and Lilien (1980) is
an excellent example of the combination of organizational
buying insights and segmentation principles for deriving
optimized customer offering solutions.
In spite of its success the marketing management approach
contains notable limitations. By assuming primarily
independent exchanges between marketers and their
customers, the MMS is silent about the buyer-seller
interaction and relationships. This is clearly a major
limitation. Moreover, it does not provide any new ideas
about the environment of business marketing activities but
assumes a working market.
Comparison of the major research traditions of
business marketing
The selected research traditions are analyzed by using the
criteria discussed in the previous section. Some problems in
comparing the approaches can arise from the relatively
heterogeneous foundation of both the Channels Research
Tradition and the Relationship Marketing School. An
alternative would have been to divide these into more
homogeneous sub-schools. We wanted, however, to
emphasize parsimony in the investigation of research
traditions. The profiles of the traditions are summarized in
Table I.
Channels research tradition in business marketing
Since late 1970s, researchers interested in industrial
marketing and marketing channels started to develop
frameworks and theories focusing on dyadic relationships
between business marketers and channel members. Research
in the channels research tradition (CRT) involves examining
how actors in a marketing channel behave, and how and why
various forms of channels evolve. The basic normative goal is
defining efficient relational forms between channel members.
Relationships are viewed as interdependent and reciprocal.
CRT tradition is primarily theory-driven and attempts
to combine the economic, political (power, dependency)
and social aspects (cooperation, trust, commitment,
communication, and conflict behavior) of channels. The
tradition relies on transaction cost theory, social exchange
theory, political economy and power and conflict in
organizational sociology (Stern and Reve, 1980; Heide and
John, 1990, 1992; Anderson and Narus, 1990; Wathne and
Heide, 2004).
Three essential points are offered:
1 both economic and political aspects and their interactions
must be considered in examining channel behavior;
2 a focal channel/dyad is the recommended unit of analysis;
and
3 complex relationships can-not be understood outside of
their context or environment, as the “dyadic behavior”
and “channel” are reciprocally interrelated (Heide, 1994;
Möller, 1994; Möller and Halinen, 2000; Rindfleisch and
Heide, 1997; Wathne and Heide, 2004).
Marketing management school in business marketing
The Marketing Management School (MMS) evolved among
marketing researchers from late 1950’s onwards. It forms a
marriage between the “marketing concept” (firms exists to
satisfy customer wants at a profit) and the perspective of
achieving this goal through management of the “mix” of
competitive marketing parameters, originally the “4 Ps”. The
tradition crystallized into a paradigmatic research approach
which has between the 1960’s and 1990’s seen to be
dominating the majority of research into marketing
(Constantinides, 2006; Sheth et al., 1988; Vargo and Lusch,
2004).
The MMS is essentially a normative theory of the
development of optimal marketing management solutions.
In solving the key questions (optimal marketing mix,
segmentation solution, and offering positioning), the school
relies on the monopolistic theory of competition and marginal
utility theory, and on being informed about customer
preferences and responses (Chamberlin, 1965, first
published 1933, Dorfman and Steiner, 1954; Dickson and
326
Do we really understand business marketing?
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
Key results of the CRT cluster around opportunism, trust,
commitment and relationship continuity and linkages
between the context of the dyad and the relational
behaviour in the dyad. The channel environment is
described through the political-economy framework (Stern
and Reve, 1980), which provides useful notions of the
characteristics of this environment. One should note,
however, that the channel context/environment-dyadic
behavior linkage, modelled through the political-economy
framework, have received relatively little empirical attention
(see, however, Wathne and Heide, 2004).
managerial goal is to sensitize managers to the embeddedness
and dynamics of management in a network context.
Both exchange relationships and networks form the unit of
analysis. Relationships exist between different types of actors,
and are seen as vehicles for accessing and controlling
resources, and creating new resources in the relationships.
The key questions include: “How are relationships created
and managed?”, “How do networks of relationships evolve?”,
“How can an actor influence these relationships and create a
position in a network?”, and “How do networks function and
evolve?” (see, Ford, 1990, 1997, 2002 for compilations of
INA research).
The approach is influenced by channels research, resource
dependency theory, social exchange theory, evolutionary
economics and sociology, and resource-based theory
(Axelsson and Easton, 1992; Möller and Halinen, 2000).
Interaction processes, adaptation and investments in
relationships, actor bonds, resource ties, activity chains,
relationship outcomes, networks of relationships, network
dynamics, and embeddedness represent key constructs. More
recently, the management perspective in the network context
has gained focus (Möller et al., 2005; Möller and Svahn,
2006; Möller and Rajala, 2007; Ritter et al., 2004). The
approach emphasizes contextuality and time, where singular
events or relationships cannot be understood without
knowledge of their environmental context and evolution.
The environment is not transparent, and actors perceive its
structure and meanings and learn about them through
enactment (Weick, 1969, 1977, 1995). On a macro level
network theory provides a competing description for the
market view-based theory of industrial organization (Porter,
1980).
This IMP-research emphasis on historic understanding,
while being strong on descriptive analysis, has stalled the
study of network management. The approach is still relatively
silent about the management in business networks. The
notable exception is the work by Möller and his group and
Ritter and colleagues.
Relationship marketing
The key aspect of relationship marketing (RM) in the narrow
sense is the focus on marketer-supplier relationships and the
dynamics of these relationships. Both the seller and customer
can be active, which is the key to understanding their
behaviors and relationship dynamics. The approach is
influenced by services marketing, the interaction approach
in business marketing, channels research, and the ideas of
database and direct marketing (Möller and Halinen, 2000;
Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2000). In addition, Sheth and
Parvatiyar (1995) included aspects of consumer behavior
research as the roots of RM.
This variety of roots has consequences for the consistency
of the developing RM theory. Möller and Halinen (2000)
contend that RM actually consists of two theoretically
different and distinctive approaches: market-based RM
(MRM) and network-based RM (NRM).
Marked-based RM assumes a market of potential customer
relationships with relatively low actor interdependence and
interaction intensity, and consequently, relatively low
switching costs. In business marketing applications this
approach is related to the use of CRM tools for targeting
marketing activities, managing the buyer- seller encounters,
and the customer life-cycle value (Ehret, 2004; Gummesson,
2004). Another important theme is the analysis of the
relationship value and its antecedents (Ulaga, 2003; Ulaga
and Eggert, 2006).
Network-based RM assumes a network of interdependent,
often reciprocal relationships involving relatively complex
buyer-seller interactions leading to mutual dependence and
higher switching costs. This perspective is discussed under the
interaction and networks approach.
The market-based relationship marketing does not address
the context or environment of the buyer-seller exchange and
its influence on the relationship. Competitive markets with
several independent buyers and sellers are assumed. Although
emphasizing collaboration in value creation and dialogue as a
means of achieving this (Grönroos, 2004; Gummesson,
1997); there is relatively little empirical evidence on the
dialogical practices in the business marketing context. The
tradition examines increasing commitment levels of customer
roles (e.g. the “ladder of loyalty” by Christopher et al. 2002)
but the perspective is primarily on marketer’s activities.
Service dominant logic
The evaluation of service dominant logic (SDL) approach
(Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2006, 2008) is difficult for a number
of reasons. As the newest contender among the research
traditions in marketing SDL has not had the time to produce
much empirical research, and seems to form an orientation or
programme which has not had sufficient time to become a
“tradition”. On the other hand, the SDL has raised strong
interest and discussion about the theory development in
marketing and merits our attention in this paper.
The focus of SDL is on gaining greater understanding of
marketing as a value co-creation process. The approach
suggests that all value creation is service-based and grounded
on the co-creation of value between the marketer and the
customer. Marketers can only provide value propositions,
embedded in offerings, and it depends on the motivation and
capability of customers to render benefits, i.e. value out of
offerings. As such the approach shares the interaction
perspective of customers and suppliers with the interaction
and network tradition. Another key aspect is the role of
capabilities / competencies, these are the key resources
(“operant resources”) for both creating value propositions
and rendering value out of them; thus knowledge and
capabilities are the core source of competitive advantage. In
Interaction and networks approach
The interaction and network (INA) is mainly associated with
the work centered on the IMP Group (Anderson et al., 1994;
Axelsson and Easton, 1992; Ford, 1990; Håkansson and
Snehota, 1995). The goals are to understand and explain the
functioning of business markets from the perspective of the
interactive buyer-seller and other actor relationships, as well
as the networks these relationships constitute. The broad
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other words, the resource-based view of the firm and its
marketing related application, resource advantage theory,
provides a strong foundation for the SDL.
While emphasizing marketing as a social and economic
process as a context of the dyadic level value creation, SDL
does not yet articulate this process and its interaction with the
dyadic exchange which is one of the strengths of the channels
tradition. Vargo and Lusch advocate that the SDL should
form the basis of a unified theory of marketing. It can be seen
more in terms of an orientation, however, a perspective
providing guidelines how certain existing schools of marketing
should be utilized in normative fashion in value creation.
Similarly to INA, SDL adopts a network approach to
conceptualizing the environment.
opportunities. These studies reflect the constructive view of
environment adopted by the network approach. It should also
be pointed out that within both the CRT and network
approach the organizational behaviour and managerial action
is understood to be constrained by the links that the firms
have in the channel and network environment. Within the
service dominant logic approach the view on management
and decision-making concentrates on the service providercustomer value co-creation process, but the management does
not receive any elaboration or theorization us such.
The relationship marketing focuses primarily on the dyadic
buyer-seller relationships and assumes, often implicitly, a
market context. As such the RM is, somewhat paradoxically,
close to the traditional Marketing Management School. It
assumes a given market environment with numerous customers,
having heterogeneous preferences. Theoretically each customer
can be handled in a unique manner; this is an optimization issue
between personalization benefits and costs. The key difference
between the RM and MMS is that the former conceptualizes and
examines also the relationships, the factors influencing them as
well as relationship dynamics. Both adopt, however, a normative
perspective on management. Management is not examined or
theorized as such, it is assumed to carry out the suggestions of
either the MMS or RM suggestions. Under working market
conditions these can, theoretically, be conceived as optimizing
decisions (Möller, 2006).
Implications of research traditions for business
marketing
We can draw several significant conclusions from the research
tradition analysis. It is evident that each tradition provides a
particular and partial view of its focal phenomena, dependent
both on its ontological and epistemological assumptions and
the issues researchers have chosen to take to the foreground.
This suggests that managers should pay attention to the
underlying assumptions and limitations of each research
tradition imbedded in the marketing modes they adopt.
The results also challenge the rather all-encompassing view
many authors are granting to the Relationship Marketing
School. It is evident that the way business marketing
relationships are understood and examined varies between the
relationship marketing, channels research tradition, interaction
and network approach, and service dominant logic which all
examine customer-supplier relationships. Risking broad
generalizations, the CRT and INA view exchange
relationships in their institutional and networks environment
and pay attention to the interaction between these layers. That
is, how the channel environment influences dyadic business
relationships or how the network positions and roles of actors
influence their dyadic relationships. As such these approaches
adopt the Giddensian structurization view (Giddens, 1984).
Where the environment is not an external, “given” entity but
constructed by the actors which populate it. This view seems to
be shared by the service dominant logic, as it sees marketing as a
“social and economic process” and resources as “becoming, not
being”. The SDL does not, however, develop this view further,
but focuses on the value co-creation process between customers
and service providers.
The CRT is relatively silent about management and
decision-making. By emphasizing both the economic and
political aspects in explaining channels behaviour the tradition
presumes a “politico-economic” type of manager who
considers these aspects when making sense of their
environment (the political-economy of the channel) and in
making decisions about supplier / customer choice and
relational contracts and behaviour. As such the view is not
only about “win-win”, trust and commitment but, also,
involves the use of power and conflicts in business
relationships. Recent work within the network approach
goes deeper in understanding managerial behaviour.
Henneberg et al. (2006) have examined managerial
cognition, that is, managers’ “network pictures and network
theories”, and their sense making processes in a network
context; and Möller (2009) suggests how actors’ network
positions and roles are related to their environmental learning
A configurational approach
From the previous section’s comparative analysis, of the
diverse research approaches to the understanding of business
marketing, it is clear that there are multiple interpretations of
how business marketing environments operate. For example,
the Marketing Management School views business marketing
environments as markets in which transactions occur, whereas
the relationship marketing scholars see markets as the
environment for relationships. The Channel Research and
Industrial Network approach both challenge the market
notion and develop theories of channel systems and “markets
as networks”. It is important to note that the view on
environment influences considerably how the schools treat the
managerial action and decision making. Another significant
point from the previous section is that each research approach
shows consistency between its disciplinary background and
theoretical emphasis, goals and driving force, view of the
nature of the environment, and the level and unit of analysis.
That is, they are relatively logical given their goals and
premises. As such it is futile to argue which one is more
“correct” in its view of the business marketing environment.
On the other hand, as discussed in the introduction, even
though each research tradition seems a valid alternative,
recent content analysis of the major business marketing
journals show that there is an increase in relationship related
articles (Dant and Lapuka, 2008; LaPlaca, 2008). This
notion contains a problem, however. The relationship
marketing practices seem to vary from “near transactional”,
through the “market-based relationship marketing” to
“networks-based relationship marketing”.
Last but not least, empirical studies in the business
marketing indicate that firms employ a combination of
classical transactional marketing and a range of relational
practices (Pels and Snehota, 1995; Binks and Ennew, 1996;
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Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
Coviello et al., 2002; Pels et al., 2004; Benson-Rea, 2005;
Lefaix-Durand, 2008).
In short, so far we have shown that there is a set of valid
alternative research traditions having varied views and
understanding of the business marketing environment. Our
analysis also revealed that the generic or “received” view of
relationship marketing is misleading. The content and
meaning of RM varies considerably across the channels
research, market-based relationship marketing, and the
interaction and network approach. Moreover, empirical
studies indicate that companies are using several modes of
marketing. We address the puzzle by developing a conceptual
framework that helps to understand the diverse ways firms
relate to their markets (Day and Montgomery, 1999) and
allows for all marketing modes to co-exist. For this we
propose the configurational approach for marketing, drawing
on the configurational approach from organization theory and
the Neo-contingent perspective from the strategy literature.
causality between environment and strategy to a holistic
multidimensional approach where strategies are the
manifestation of a constellations of relationships between keyforces[5] (Meyer et al., 1993). Third, the importance assigned to
the role of managerial beliefs in decision making, i.e. managerial
assumptions are considered as one of the forces that lead to the
structuring of the configurational profiles rather than
considering them as filters to the correct understanding of the
environment (Miles and Snow, 1978). Furthermore, these
authors provide conceptual frameworks to explain the
multiplicity of coexisting strategies/structures found in their
studies.
A gap in the marketing discipline?
As we have shown in the previous sections, there is neither a
unified research approach nor a unique business marketing
practice. Furthermore, no framework has been developed to
help understand the reasons for this occurrence.
One of our concerns here is that many of these marketing
modes assume a “quasi-deterministic underpinning” and part
of the problem is that they do not make this explicit. Thus a
first point to acknowledge is that business marketing
environments are not monolithic or homogeneous. They are
complex spaces which some have described as markets, some
as channel systems, and others as networks. Furthermore,
sustained in the CA, we shall argue that firms do not simply
react-to or engage-in a pre-existing environment, but that
their actions make or, at least partially, shape it.
We contend that the configurational approach will allow us
to argue that the relational-interactive perspective is not a
response to the business marketing environment but, rather,
one of the possible strategic types or configurations. This is
significant because “business marketing ¼ relationship
marketing” is, to a great extent, taken for granted (Dant
and Lapuka, 2008; LaPlaca, 2008). This close “matrimony”
restricts researchers and manager attention to other modes of
marketing and the benefits they can offer.
The emergence of the configurational approach and the
Neo-contingency perspective
Snow and Miles (1983) suggest a Neo-contingency
perspective that recognises that industry, strategy and
management philosophy interact as forces[3] that both
enable and constrain organizational behaviour. They
develop a typology of four strategic types[4]:
1 defenders;
2 prospectors;
3 analyzers; and
4 reactors.
Similarly to Miller and Friesen’s (1977, 1978) studies, their
research indicates simultaneous presence of strategic types
within the same industry (Miller and Friesen, 1978, p. 120).
In 1986, Miller seeks to integrate the contrasting claims of
the accepted paradigms in the field of management. Miller
recognises the contribution of each school of thought arguing
that each paradigm suggested the predominance of a given
force (which he names imperative), however, he argues that
what really occurs is an interplay between all of them. Miller
develops the configurational approach as an encompassing,
holistic, framework which integrates the tensions of four
imperatives: strategy, structure, leadership and environment
(Miller, 1986, 1987, 1996). The tensions between these
forces restrict organizational variety and give rise to specific
configurations. Miller (1986, p. 236) defines configurations as
“tight constellations of mutually supportive elements. The
presence of certain elements can thus lead to the reliable
prediction of the remaining elements” (Miller and Mintzberg,
1984).
In short, the configuration approach and the Neo-contingency
perspective are equivalent frameworks. Snow and Miles overlays
are equivalent to Miller’s imperatives (see first two columns in
Table II) while the patterns of behaviour or strategic types are
equivalent to the archetypes or configurations.
The relevance of Miller and Miles and Snow work is in their
fundamental shift to a configurational approach. In this shift of
logic they depart from the notion of “one-correct approach”
towards accepting multiple valid strategies of interaction. There
are three central tenets of the configurational approach. First, the
acknowledgment of equifinality, i.e. that there is more than one
way to succeed in each type of setting. Second, the adoption of a
holistic view, i.e. the shift from the contingent concept of
Developing a configurational approach for
marketing (CAM)
This section will introduce the configurational approach for
marketing (CAM). CAM is a conceptual framework that
helps identifying possible configurational profiles (i.e.
identifying different equivalently valid ways of relating to a
business environment). As a consequence, CAM helps
understand why firms relate to the business marketing
environment with a multiplicity of marketing modes.
Furthermore, it will show that the BM-RM matrimony is
but one possible configuration.
Approaches towards developing configurations:
typology versus taxonomy
In developing their typology of strategic types, Snow and
Miles (1983) identify three key overlays:
1 industry;
2 management philosophy; and
3 strategy.
Similarly, Miller (1986, 1987) identifies four imperatives:
strategy, structure, leadership and environmental as the
sources of his configurations. When both approaches are
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Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
Table II Imperatives of the marketing configurations
Miles and Snow (1978) – overlay
Miller (1987) – imperative
Current paper (2008) –imperatives
Management philosophy
Industry
Strategy
Leadership
Environment
Structure – strategy
Frame of reference
Environment-organization relationship
Marketing practice
organizational theorists (i.e. Bourgeois, 1980; Weick and
Daft, 1983) and strategic management scholars (i.e. Smircich
and Stubbart, 1985; Mintzberg, 1987) questioned whether an
external objective environment existed. Different positions
emerged. A first group believed in environment determinism.
These scholars argued in favour of attaining an optimal
organizational-environmental fit – for instance – through a
SWOT analysis (Andrews, 1971). However, they did
recognize that bounded rationality (Cyert and March, 1963)
hindered the possibilities of achieving this goal. A second
group of scholars argued that the environment is a social
construction (Berger and Luckmann, 1967) that there is no
unequivocal reading; rather there are multiple possible
interpretations of events.
Interpretation is the process through which information is
given meaning and actions are chosen (Daft and Weick,
1984). Along these lines, Smircich and Stubbart (1985,
pp. 725-6) argue that there are no threats or opportunities out
there in the environment, just material and symbolic records
of action. A strategist who is determined to find meaning
creates relationships by bringing connections and patterns to
action, making imaginary links between events, objects and
situations so that they become meaningful for the members of
an organization. This view is aligned with Weick’s (1977)
concept of enactment.
On discussing the environment Miller lists a set of
environmental dimensions (e.g. dynamism, uncertainty,
concentration, technology). Similarly, Miles and Snow use
the industry as the overlay recognizing it as a proxy for a
number of important characteristics of an organizational
environment. This paper departs from both these choices and,
supported by the previous discussion on the subjective nature
of the environment, argues that there is no external
environment that acts as an objective imperative. Therefore
the nature of the environment is not given and the
relationship between environment and organization can be
manifested in many ways. Therefore EOR is suggested as the
appropriate imperative that relates to choice and decision
making and that will influence the constitution of the
configuration.
Daft and Weick (Daft and Weick, 1984; Weick and Daft
(1983) develop a model of the organization’s interpretation
system. Given that they have developed a clear
operationalization of it and that they have tested it, the
CAM will be grounded on their work. Daft and Weick’s
model is a matrix based on two contrasting assumptions of
how the nature of the environment is envisioned and two
opposing levels of organizational intrusiveness. Their model
suggests four organizational types: the glancing, the enacting,
the staring and the discovering (see Figure 1).
compared it is clear that the natures of the imperatives/
overlays are equivalent (see rows in Table II).
More recently, when advising how to research the property
of configurations, Miller (1996) recommends employing a
number of indicators of configurations and creativity in
deriving new operationalizations. We hope to comply with
both of Miller’s challenges and will suggest adopting the
following imperatives in developing the marketing typology
(see third column in Table II):
.
frame of reference (instead of management philosophy or
leadership);
.
the environment-organization relationship (rather than
industry or the environment); and
.
marketing practice (instead of strategy or structure).
In the next section we develop the rationale behind each
choice.
The frame of reference (FOR)
In both Miller and Miles and Snow’s frameworks it is clear
that the leadership imperative and the managerial philosophy
overlay are central to the structuring of the configurations (see
first row in Table II). However, more current management
literature suggests a shift from the CEO to the frame of
reference (Krepapa and Berthon, 2003[6]) of the top
management team[7] (Jablin, 1997; Child, 1972, 1997;
Sutcliffe and Huber, 1998; Prahalad, 2004).
Given the clarity with which Shrivastava and Mitroff (1983,
1984) define frame of reference, the fact that they have
developed an operationalization of the construct, that they
have tested it and that they developed a frame of reference
classification the CAM will be grounded on their work.
Shrivastava and Mitroff (1983, p. 163) define frame of
reference as the assumptions that underlie decision-making in
organizations, providing the conceptual schemes, models, or
theories and cognitive maps that the inquirer uses to order all
information and to make sense of it. They identify six
components of a frame of reference which they consider
useful to study managerial assumptions:
1 cognitive elements;
2 cognitive operators;
3 set of reality tests;
4 cognitive maps of the domain of inquiry;
5 degree of articulation; and
6 metaphors.
From their empirical studies four organizational types are
elicited: political, entrepreneurial, bureaucratic and
professional (see Figure 1).
The environment-organization relationship (EOR)
The second imperative relates to the external related factor
(see second row in Table II). Dill (1958) was among the first
to highlight the importance of environmental factors and their
constraints to the structure of organizations and the behaviour
of organizational participants. Two decades later
Marketing practice (MP)
CAM agrees with both Miller and Miles and Snows on the
importance of adopting a managerial decision related factor
(see third row in Table II) and will adopt a marketing-related
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Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
Figure 1 The CAM conceptual framework
combining both the European and North American schools
operationalizing them into a typology of marketing modes
(Coviello et al., 1997; Brodie et al., 1997, 2008). More
importantly, the CMP group has conducted empirical studies
(e.g. Coviello et al., 2002) which have lead to taxonomy of
marketing practices and for these reason the CAM will adopt
the CMP’s taxonomy.
The CMP categorization is based on two constructs[8]: the
relational exchange and the managerial activities. Nine
underlying dimensions support these two constructs: five
related to relational exchanges (purpose of exchange; nature
of communication; type of contact; type of exchange; and
formality of exchange) and four dimensions associated
with managerial activities (managerial intent; managerial
focus; managerial investment; and managerial level of
implementation). For each underlying dimension the CMP
group has developed five indicators related to the five
marketing modes: transaction marketing, database marketing,
e-marketing, interaction marketing, and network marketing.
Though the CMP initial approach was that of a typology
their most relevant conclusions initiate when there is a shift, in
2002, towards a taxonomy derived from the empirical data
collected. When analysing the data of developed countries
(i.e. Coviello et al., 2002) three clusters emerge: the
transactional, the relational and the transactional/relational
(here after pluralistic) cluster. When the studies are
conducted in emerging economies (i.e. Argentina, Russia
and Ghana) a fourth (low formal marketing cluster) was
identified (Pels et al., 2004; Wagner and Pels, 2004; Dadzie
et al., 2008) (see Figure 1).
This shift from the five marketing modes (which were
typologies derived from the research traditions) to the
marketing practices (which are taxonomies derived from the
managerial responses) is central to our argument. It highlights
decision. There have been several pluralistic classifications of
marketing modes/practices (i.e. Arndt, 1979; Webster, 1992;
Möller, 1994; Coviello et al., 1997; Day, 2000; Möller and
Halinen, 2000; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2000; Coviello et al.,
2002).
Some of these scholars differentiate only between
transactional and relational marketing (Jackson, 1985;
Grönroos, 1991; Webster, 1992; Håkansson and Snehota,
1995) or traditional good-centric and emerging servicecentred (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) while others are more subtle
and distinguish between traditional marketing model, dyadic
model and domesticated markets model (Arndt, 1979),
or transactions, repeated transactions, long-termed
relationships, buyer-seller partnerships, strategic alliances,
networks and vertical integration (Webster, 1992), or
transaction marketing, short-term dyadic relationships, longterm relationships and networks (Möller and Wilson,
1995a, b) or between transaction marketing, relationship
marketing and plural marketing (Coviello et al., 2002) or
transactional, narrow and broad relationship marketing
(Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2000).
In order to select which of the above classifications to adopt
this paper was informed by Miller’s (1986, p. 237) criteria to
select the strategic dimensions “were, of necessity, somewhat
arbitrary . . . they had to be sufficiently specific to be both
identifiable and controllable by managers, and general enough
to apply to most industries. . .dimensions had to exhibit broad
coverage in two aspects: they had collectively to exhaust a
considerable range of possible strategies and they had to
encompass many specific elements that could richly
characterize the strategies of most businesses”. The
contemporary marketing practice (CMP) builds on a vast
literature review which seeks to develop an understanding of
how firms relate to their markets in a manner that integrates
both traditional and modern views of marketing as well as
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Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
the managerial nature of the configurations and the role of
managerial choice.
examined through three interrelated but distinctive schools:
CRT, RM, and Network. Furthermore, although each of the
research traditions provides some insight into specific
managerial and firm behaviors in relation to their market
contexts, none of these approaches help understand why there
are multiple ways firms relate to their markets.
In order to address the question why particular firms
engage in certain marketing modes we have constructed a
contingency approach for marketing framework. Sceptics
might ask “what is the use of it?” and be answered by Snow
and Miles (1983, p. 256), who asked and answered the
question: “so what – where will this (configuration) approach
lead us?”. In their view, even a rudimentary general
framework, employing no more than their three overlays is
of great value: for managers it provides a powerful diagnostic
tool and for academics it is particularly helpful in theory
construction.
From a managerial perspective The CAM frame suggests
that managers should carefully examine the internal logic of
their marketing-related configuration. Performance should be
enhanced if the three elements – managerial frame of
reference, organization/environment relationship, marketing
mode – are coherent.
From an academic point of view, we contend that our
configuration approach for marketing presents a – holistic
framework, which suggests interplay-coherence – between
strategic choice, understanding of the organizationenvironment relationship and marketing decisions. It
permits other configurations to co-exist beyond the
relational-interaction configuration and thus allows for other
marketing approaches to the business marketing environment
beyond the RM-BM matrimony. CAM provides a conceptual
framework that can host the “puzzling” empirical results of
the CMP and other studies quoted in the introduction of this
paper which all shows that there are multiple ways that firms
relate to their business marketing environment.
How do imperatives interact to influence
configurations?
The previous sections have explained the criteria for selecting
the three chosen imperatives and listed the related taxonomies
and typologies developed by renowned colleagues. These are
represented graphically in Figure 1. The CAM framework is a
synthesis of the three imperatives and their related typologies
and taxonomies. Its function is to help identify viable
configurational profiles. The next step is to describe how
configurational archetypes are developed.
CAM seems to suggest that the combination of the diverse
cells in Figure 1 might allow an infinite number of
configurations in the business marketing environment. This
is not the case. Nickerson and Zenger (2002) introduce the
coherency principle[9] which suggests that all elements of the
configuration must coherently exist without conflict. Thus,
when the configuration is limited by the coherency principle,
the prevalence of a limited set of options is not unexpected.
This statement is consistent with Desarbo’s (2005) argument
that organizational configurations do not result in a
continuous set of options but can only be categorized into a
small number of types. In other words, each configurational
profile must represent a coherent combination between the
top management’s frame of reference, the environmentorganization relationship and the marketing practice.
This paper does not have the space, or the intention, to
fully develop the configurational marketing profiles; however,
two examples are provided:
1 An organization with a professional frame of reference
would have a discovering organization-environment
relationship and a transactional marketing practice.
2 An organization with an entrepreneurial frame of
reference would have a enacting environmentorganization relationship and a relational marketing
practice.
Future research
We do argue that the different marketing modes represent
possible alternative valid configurationial profiles in the
business marketing environment. As a result, from this
perspective, the relational-interaction mode, (see previous
example #2), is only one of possible marketing configurations.
The CAM framework also offers important guidelines for
future research. First, we have limited ourselves to identify the
FoR, EOR and MP typologies from existing literature and
used these to construct the CAM framework. More empirical
studies are called for in order to provide stronger grounds for
the postulated FoR, EoR and MP typologies. Moreover, we
need programmatic research addressing the existence of
various marketing practice profiles to understand more fully
why these occur and how effective are they in their own
contexts.
One way to proceed is to expand the contemporary
marketing practices research. The CAM configurations, could
be sampled, once operationalized the underlying dimensions,
and their root conditions could then be examined to explain
why specific profiles emerge. By complementing this with the
performance measures we could pursue the relative
effectiveness of different marketing practices profiles in their
context.
The briefly sketched approach follows the logic of
quantitative analysis and does not capture the dynamics of
constructing different marketing practice profiles. This could
be addressed with carefully designed longitudinal case-study
designs. One should try to identify firms operating in a same
field but pursuing different marketing practices and analyze
Conclusion
From our analysis and typology of the major research
traditions we can see that each one is useful for specific
purposes, domains and activities and that furthermore the
mainstream approaches of marketing management and
relationship marketing schools do not have any articulated
theories of the context or environment of business marketing
activities but assume and rely on the notion of working
markets. We have also seen from our review of the major
research traditions that this environmental view is challenged
by both the channels research and the network approach
which offer well-articulated theories of the environment and
also address the interactive relationship between actors and
“environment” through the structurization concept and the
social construction view of networks.
By taking an overview of the research traditions, as we have
in this paper, it has been shown that research into business
marketing relationships is not monolith but is actually
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Jaqueline Pels, Kristian Möller and Michael Saren
Volume 24 · Number 5/6 · 2009 · 322 –336
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(EOR), and organization’s relation to customers (MP) in the
CAM profile construction. These efforts would bring the
theory development within business marketing to closer
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Notes
1 Further details about the participants, research philosophy
and other aspects of the CMP research program are
available at http://cmp.auckland.ac.nz
2 It is a systematic evaluation of the basic assumptions and
questions that each of the research traditions makes about
the core phenomena of business marketing, and about the
key conceptualizations and answers that each provide.
The comparison helps to see the overlaps and unique
contribution of each tradition; it also highlights the
limitations and possible white areas we may still have in
the discipline. As such a meta-theory analysis facilitates
our navigation among the diversified research approaches,
helps us to make conscious and efficient choices of theory,
and also provides direction for the development of the
theories.
3 Snow and Miles (1983, p. 241) adopt the term “overlay”.
An overlay is “intended to increase understanding of
organizational behaviour by highlighting key contexts or
boundaries within which behaviour occur. By successively
superimposing on the alignment-arrangement process one
important context (overlay) after another, an increasingly
specified pattern of behaviour is observable”.
4 Miles and Snow (1978, p. 12) define strategic types as
“alternative forms of organization”.
5 Miller (1986) calls these diverse strategies
“configurational profiles” and the key forces
“imperatives”.
6 Krepapa and Berthon (2003, p. 189) are among the few
who have discussed this issue within the marketing
literature, as they state, “unlike other marketing studies
that have overlooked the role of interpretations. . .we
identify interpretations as a central phenomenon and
investigate it at the collective marketing decision-making
level”. It is important to note that Krepapa and Berthon
were focused on interpretative diversity and market
learning. However, their work is consistent with this
paper as one of the central concerns in the learning
process is to “understand how managers in organizations
construct meaning and then exploring how that reality
provides a context for organized action” (Krepapa and
Berthon, 2003, p. 190).
7 Also named the dominant coalition, the dominant
decision making group or the dominant logic and
defined as the chief executive and those managers he/she
defines as his/her top management team.
8 Coviello et al., 1997 name them “themes”.
9 Which Miller (1986) names internal harmony.
333
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Further reading
O’Driscoll, A. (2008), “Exploring paradox in marketing:
managing ambiguity towards synthesis”, Journal of Business
& Industrial Marketing, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 95-104.
Pels, J., Brodie, R. and Saren, M. (2004), “Investigating
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Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 2-3 September.
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Corresponding author
Jaqueline Pels can be contacted at: [email protected]
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