A history of schools of marketing thought

¶ … Shaw and Jones (2005) point out that it is only during the last century that marketing came into its own and developed into the huge enterprise that it has become. In fact., it has expanded into at least10 distinct schools. These are as follows:the traditional approaches that emerged at the start of the century and concerned themselves with studying functions, commodities and institutions. The interregional trade approach that studied trade both locally and in contrast to the different regions. A paradigm shift occurred in mid-century generating a mushrooming of new schools that included the following: marketing management, marketing systems, consumer behavior, macromarketing, exchange, and marketing history .

During the mid 1970s, at least three of these schools (marketing behavior, consumer behavior, and exchange) changed themselves still further. All of this has separated the field of marketing from its original field, business science, and has brought it closer to the endeavor of human relations.

The authors conclude by noting that marketing, at the start of the millennium, is at a crossroads.

The article of Wilkie and Moore (2003) adopted a theme and approach that shares a lot of similarities with that of Shaw and Jones. They point out that the field of marketing has taken huge leaps in recent decades pushing itself in all directions -- strategically, behaviorally, and quantitative. It has expanded globally and merged itself with astounding technology. The authors are, however, concerned that whilst propagating this expansion, Marketing may be leaving useful things behind.

Conducting a through literature review and profound analysis of marketing through the last century, the authors divide the marketing experience into four distinct eras and assess how societal dimensions of marketing during each of these periods has fared. The authors conclude by presenting several recommendations for the future of marketing that they think can help researchers concerned with marketing research.

Shaw and Jones go through an extensive literature review of what they call the 10 historical schools of marketing. They bring extensive history and characterization of each of these schools, describing them and their contributions in depth. They tell us about the objective of the schools and assess its outcome quoting numerous scholars to do so. They also tell us scholar's opinions about the schools and the school's contribution to marketing research.

Finally, they tell us that each school had its own perspective and they show that none exactly managed to converge, In this way, they note, "Despite the impressive accumulation of knowledge within particular schools during the past 100 years, the status of marketing thought taken as a whole appears in more disarray at the beginning of the 21st century than at the beginning of the 20th century." (25).To 'clean 'our knowledge, it would be profitable to make linkages, particularly since researchers often focus on one school tot the determent of the others. By doing so, much valuable information has been lost inn the process.

Also, and unfortunately too, marketing has become more quantitative and practical at the cost of its theoretical values. This mushrooming of the subject has resulted in a vagueness of subject matter and obfuscation. This expansion of the field can continue ad infinitum: the authors argue that marketing return to adopting the conventional business domain as base for its though.

The article of Shaw and Jones is similar to that of Wilkie and Moore in that it too is an extensive literature review that has categorized itself into a pattern and also assesses the history of marketing. It too noted that marketing has assumed distinct species of thought but in contrast to Shaw and Jones seemed to perceive these "eras; of thought as progressive or dialectical rather than fragmented (as Shaw and Jones sees them). Each era emerged with its own occurrence, as for instance in one there was the growth of textbooks on the subject, and in another the appearance of think tanks and later on still journals. As the field of marketing development, its excitement intensified and it expanded until it became global.