The 2004 AMA Definition of Marketing and Its Relationship to a Market Orientation: An Extension of Cooke, Rayburn, & Abercrombie (1992)

Abstract

AbstractCooke, Rayburn, and Abercrombie (1992) use historical definitions of marketing to define four major schools of marketing thought. These four schools include the (1) economic utility viewpoint, (2) consumer viewpoint, (3) societal viewpoint, and (4) managerial viewpoint. We suggest that the 2004 AMA definition of marketing creates an additional school of marketing thought, the stakeholder viewpoint. In addition, for over four decades, researchers have used market orientation scales to operationalize what it means for a firm to follow the marketing concept. While the conceptualisation of a market orientation has remained static, the definition of marketing has changed quite dramatically. Few authors have revisited original scale properties and none have addressed the central question of what it means for an organization to be market oriented in the context of the 2004 AMA definition of marketing. As a consequence, market orientation scales have been used sometimes with little consideration as to their relevance. Given changes in the AMA definition of marketing, changes to market characteristics, changes in our understanding of competitive behavior and advances in management theory and scale development, this paper calls for a new scale or scales to be developed that more fully captures the market orientation construct in the context of the 2004 AMA definition of marketing and the "stakeholder" perspective of marketing thought. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJenny DarrochJenny Darroch (Ph.D., Otago) is assistant professor of marketing at the Peter Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. Her current research focuses on the interface between marketing and entrepreneurship, in particular the comparison between market driven and driving markets firm behavior. Earlier research looked at the antecedents of innovation within firms. Prior to joining Claremont Graduate University, Jenny was the Director of Entrepreneurship and senior lecturer in Marketing at the University of Otago in New Zealand.Morgan P. MilesMorgan P. Miles (DBA, Mississippi State) is professor of marketing at Georgia Southern University. His research interests include the interface between marketing, ethics, and corporate entrepreneurship. He has been a senior research associate for the Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge University, a visiting professor of Marketing, at the University of Stockholm, and most recently a visiting professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Otago where much of the work for this manuscript was completed.Andrew JardineAndrew Jardine is a doctoral candidate with the Department of Marketing at the University of Otago. His research and teaching interests are consumer behavior and qualitative research. Andrew has a Masters degree in Social Psychology and through this training developed expertise in interpretataive research, in particular the application of discourse analysis to consumption and advertising.Ernest F. CookeErnest F. Cooke (Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University) is a professor of marketing. He has taught fulltime at Case Western Reserve University in Baltimore, Memphis State University, and Loyola College in Maryland. At Memphis State University he held an endowed chair. His business experience includees over eighteen years at Reliance Electric Co. He has over one hundred papers in a variety of journals and conference proceedings on marketing, economics, and electrical engineering.