Practical value of adequate marketing management theory

Abstract

This is a critical discourse on marketing management textbooks and their presentations of general marketing theory. These books claim to be general, complete and up‐to‐date, although the base of “textbook theory” is consumer goods mass marketing, a minority of all marketing if compared to services and B‐to‐B marketing. Seminal developments over the past decades in services marketing, quality management, relationship marketing and CRM are treated as special cases although they intervene in all types of marketing. The article claims that marketing management has become stereotyped on a derelict foundation in commodity‐like textbooks. It ends with guidelines on how research in marketing could reinvent itself to the benefit of both academics and practitioners.