Epistemology and Meta-Theory of Sound

EPISTEMOLOGY AND META-THEORY of sound marketing theory

All organizations seek to provide their internal and external customers with the best possible mix of quality and service, but many fall short of these goals. While the emergence of e-commerce and its impact of the marketing function have been profound in recent years, many of the fundamental purposes and underlying tenets of marketing remain unchanged. In order to better understand the forces that tend to affect all organizations, though, managers must recognize what issues are important and which are irrelevant or less important to achieving an organization's goals; furthermore, managers must also be able to formulate timely and effective methods of promoting their product or service in an increasingly globalized and competitive marketplace. To this end, this paper will provide an analysis of what means and methods are important to understanding markets and marketing, followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

For example, in their essay, "Relationship Marketing and Data Quality Management," Talha D. Harcar and Omar E.M. Khalil (1999) report that, "In today's turbulent environment of global business, successful organizations must be able to provide high-quality products and services on the basis of personal knowledge of customers. Customer service needs to be constructed on the premise that consumers are increasingly demanding to be treated as individuals, not just as members of a large group" (p. 26). In this regard, John Rossiter (2001) points out that marketing knowledge represents the foundation of the discipline, but surprisingly, there has been no consensus reached to date concerning a precise definition for what marketing knowledge actually means and what its implications may be for small and large, and public and private organizations.

There have been some contributions to the endeavor, though. For example, from a marketing knowledge perspective, the degree to existing knowledge of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has an impact on their capability to respond to their internal and external environments has been examined by authorities such as C.K. Prahalad (1995) and Doherty and Delener (2001). In this regard, Lewis and Varey (2000) note that "Internal Marketing is a relationship development process in which staff autonomy and know-how combine to create and circulate new organizational knowledge that will challenge internal activities which need to be changed to enhance quality in marketplace relationships" (p. 31). Other authors, though, emphasize that the global marketplace is a dynamic place where such knowledge is a highly transient commodity.

The growing body of research suggests that a constant state of change has become a relatively permanent state of affairs for many organizations (Wheatley, 1992). When these changes adversely affect an organization's ability to achieve its goals, though, aggressive steps must be taken to overcome them. In terms of a marketer's ability to develop timely and effective campaigns for its clients, this means much more than simply "rolling with the punches" and reacting to changes; indeed, what is required today is a fundamental understanding of how organizations typically react to change and what this means for the marketing function (Prahalad, 1995). In this regard, Karl E. Weick (1989) advises, "No sooner do people make sense of the world, than that sense is out of date" (p. 356).

Likewise, Poole and Van de Ven (1989) point out that organizations are in a constant state of change; however, the ability of these organizations to adequately respond to external and internal pressures may be sluggish compared to the pace of change taking place around them. Indeed, Baden-Fuller and Volbera make the point that, "Competition threatens survival. But adjustment to competition is also risky; change may fail or firms may overreact, bringing even more severe consequences. Put another way, organizations that wish to adjust need to reconcile the paradox of conflicting forces for change and stability" (p. 96).

Any viable theory of marketing knowledge must be able to adequately explain why variables or constructs emerge the way they do or why they are interrelated (Weick, 1989). In this regard, Wheatley (1992) suggests that practitioners "draw from the sciences to create and manage organizations, to design research, and to formulate hypotheses about organizational design, planning, economics, human nature, and change processes" (p. 6). While the introduction of computer-assisted technologies has provided managers today with an improved ability to accomplish these analyses, the fact remains that people are just people, and it may be difficult or even impossible to achieve a completely subjective assessment of the marketplace based on these analyses alone.

For instance, according to Slaatte (1968), the "paradox of the paradox per se refers to two opposite properties of the paradox itself: its sheer impertinence to reason, on the one hand, and its profounder pertinence to reason, on the other" (p. 6). From Slaatte's perspective, "Truth is seen in vital relation to the self in his existence-as-he-experiences-it; it is not related as though one object is thrust upon another. If truth is to be known, it must be something in which we are perennially involved as knowing subjects and from which, as persons, we are never exempt" (p. 33). This means that companies today must ensure that mechanisms are in place to ensure that any analysis of their environment takes into account the potential for such bias and constraints, and identify appropriate ways of overcoming these limitations.