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In many companies, the marketing function is in steep decline. Over the last decade in particular, there has been a marked fall-off in the influence, stature and significance of the [...]

The article presents several essays pertaining to marketing including Stephen W. Brown's "When Executives Speak, We Should Listen and Act Differently," Frederick E. Webster Jr.'s "Back to the Future: Integrating Marketing as Tactics, Strategy, and Organizational Culture," and William L. Wilkie's "Needed: A Larger Sense of Marketing and Scholarship."

Persistent inflation in the American economy has led accounting rule makers to require large firms to report the effects of inflation on certain of their financial statement data. At present, these adjusted data are to be presented as supplementary disclosures under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 33, "Financial Reporting and Changing Prices." One major result will be significant changes in cost estimates and asset valuations. The changes in financial accounting requirements are likely to be reflected almost immediately in managerial accounting procedures, with specific implications for marketing decisions in such areas as new product introduction, pricing strategy, and the valuation of individual customers and market segments. The authors describe the new accounting data briefly and, using examples, illustrate the implications for marketing managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the profession of industrial distributor in the field of marketing in the U.S. The author focuses on analyzing the results of a study, conducted in 1975, which focused on examining the role an industrial distributor plays in the marketing strategies of manufacturers. The key responsibilities of distributors, such as initiating contact with customers, delivering goods, and managing inventories, are discussed in detail. The professional relationship between salespeople and the industrial distributor is also examined. It is suggesting that the role of industrial distributor is undergoing a professional transition.

"Quadrads" (double dyads) of interviews, each conducted with a pair of marketing executives at a Japanese vendor firm and a pair of purchasing executives at a Japanese customer firm, provided data on corporate culture, customer orientation, innovativeness, and market performance. Business performance (relative profitability, relative size, relative growth rate, and relative share of market) was correlated positively with the customer's evaluation of the supplier's customer orientation, but the supplier's own assessment of customer orientation did not correspond well to that of the customer. Japanese companies with corporate cultures stressing competitiveness (markets) and entrepreneurship (adhocracies) outperformed those dominated by internal cohesiveness (clans) or by rules (hierarchies). Successful market innovation also improved performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New organization forms, including strategic partnerships and networks, are replacing simple market-based transactions and traditional bureaucratic hierarchical organizations. The historical marketing management function, based on the microeconomic maximization paradigm, must be critically examined for its relevance to marketing theory and practice in the 1990's. A new conception of marketing will focus on managing strategic partnerships and positioning the firm between vendors and customers in the value chain with the aim of delivering superior value to customers. Customer relationships will be seen as the key strategic resource of the business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary work on marketing management is grounded implicitly in a structural functionalist or contingency perspective of organizational functioning. However, the field of organizational behavior from which such a perspective derives has recently developed a major thrust into theoretical modeling and empirical research on organizational culture. The authors survey this emerging literature on organizational culture, integrate it in a conceptual framework, and then develop a research agenda in marketing grounded in the five cultural paradigms of comparative management, contingency management, organizational cognition, organizational symbolism, and structural/psychodynamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on a report by a task force created by the American Marketing Association about the development and dissemination of marketing knowledge. The author felt that the report was disappointing and focused on issues that were self-serving to those who administered the study. Furthermore, he discusses the attitude of the study and how in general it did not address issues that were relevant to those who would most likely be interested in the subject content. He looks at each of the points that he disagreed with individually and offers his suggestions for a better examination of the subject.

Interviews conducted with chief executive and operating officers in 30 major U.S. corporations identify a number of important issues for consideration by marketing managers and educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study finds that the socially conscious consumer can be distinguished by a variety of personality, attitude, and socioeconomic variables, although the relationships are rather weak. A measure of traditionally defined social responsibility was found to have no relationship to socially conscious consumer behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The markets of the 1980s require an entirely different perspective, a new set of assumptions about the environment and some fundamentally new approaches to the challenge of sustained development of the enterprise. There is no stronger tool for improving company productivity and performance than an improved marketing capability. This entails a shift from strategic planning to strategic management; a strategic choice of customers; a renewed focus on market segmentation, product differentiation, and positioning; and improved sales force deployment. The most basic commitment of all must be to the customer–a commitment to quality products and service and innovative, timely solutions to customer problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors suggest a model of industrial and institutional buying behavior as an organizational decision-making process. The major dimensions of the model are defined and some implications for marketing strategy are developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the industrial buying behavior of consumers as it relates to the research and development departments of manufacturers of commercial products. The author focuses on the marketing implications of studies of consumers' industrial purchasing practices. It is suggested that industrial managers that work at firms whose patrons are other firms could benefit from the development of a comprehensive theory regarding the relationship between product development and buying behavior. Related decision making processes are discussed in detail.

Effective application of operations research to selling strategy offers significant opportunities for understanding how the market responds to sales effort and for better strategy decisions. Lack of progress to date may have created premature disillusionment. New information technology will create new needs and opportunities for applying increasingly realistic OR techniques to selling strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here is an answer to the need for a compensation plan closely tailored to management objectives, and to the abilities and needs of the individual salesman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interviews with industrial buyers failed to identify a significant amount of word-of- mouth communication in industrial markets and suggested a key role for manufacturers' salesmen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deal proneness is a function of both the consumer's buying behavior and the frequency with which a given brand is sold on a deal basis. A method is developed for combining these factors in a statistical measure of deal proneness for an individual consumer. Through regression analysis four consumer variables are identified as having a significant influence on the Deal Proneness Index, but these variables explain only a small percentage of total variation in the Index. The findings raise some doubt about the ability of consumer deals to accomplish the manufacturer's promotional objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study of the industrial buying process has been hindered by the lack of a conceptual framework, or model. Without an analytical structure, it is difficult to identify the critical variables and relationships which need explanation. A preliminary descriptive model is offered which breaks the industrial buying process into four elements problem recognition, assignment of organizational responsibility, the search process, and the choice process [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between behavioral and optimization models should be more clearly understood. The authors define the characteristics of each. using published marker research findings. They discuss the implications of the behavioral-optimization model dichotomy for the marketing research department, and suggest an organizational arrangement for using research data more effectively in management decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mason Haire's "shopping list" study is one of the most often quoted pieces of research in marketing. This brief note reports on a replication of that study which yielded different results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patterns of influence within a given buying organization and among the various companies in an industry make industrial markets complex targets for marketing effort. Efficient marketing strategies build on these patterns of influence or, at least, do not seriously challenge these established relationships. It is therefore surprising that marketing literature has few studies of influence processes in industrial markets. With appropriate modifications, a broadly defined communication theory may help to identity, to structure, and to analyze patterns of influence in industrial markets. This article considers ways communication theory can be made more applicable to industrial markets. One major conceptual problem in studying industrial markets is whether to consider the firm of the individual buyer or manager as the decision-making unit Though some authors contend that one of the other is the proper viewpoint, both firm and individual variables must be considered. It is often helpful to view the firm's objectives, policies, procedures, and past experiences is constraints upon the individual buying-decision maker who is also influenced by his pre-dispositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the phases in the evolution of marketing management. As a field of study, marketing has not always been viewed from a management perspective. There is evidence that marketing has lost its importance and relevance as a management function in many companies. Perhaps marketing thought development has lagged behind shifts in the market environment and has become less relevant for managers, particularly those who are responsible for strategy and general management. However, marketing thought leaders have pointed the way toward a customer-oriented, service-dominated concept of marketing as the definition, development and delivery of customer value that focuses on marketing as a set of business processes rather than as a separate management function. The proper relationship between selling and marketing has always been a problem both for companies and for the marketing discipline. Over time, sales management emerged as a separate field of study within the marketing discipline and was a major focus of academic research from the 1950s to the 1980s. A significant amount of the mathematical modeling of marketing activities that was published in the 1960s and 1970s addressed field sales management issues, such as call frequency, the design of sales territories, sales force size, sales compensation plans and assignment of individual sales representatives to specific territories.

Branding theory has been largely developed in the context of consumer products; yet, most economies are characterised by a preponderance of firms selling business-to-business or industrial products. Understanding how branding works in industrial markets is thus a priority. In this paper some of the distinguishing characteristics of industrial branding are outlined, and some guidelines as to success with industrial brands are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on communication and diffusion processes in industrial markets has progressed slowly because of the complexity of these phenomena, the difficulty of measurement and some initial attempts to apply concepts from studies of non- industrial diffusion without necessary modifications. Specifically, the theory of diffusion of innovations must be modified for the industrial case as follows: 1) the introduction of individual, psychological factors and organizational, economic factors must be specifically recognized. The perceived risk construct has real promise here; 2) forms of influence that do not require inter-personal interaction must be identified and analyzed for their impact on the adoption decision; 3) data must be developed that capture the richness of organizational buying decisions within the same firms over extended time periods. Until such efforts have been exhausted it is pre- mature to conclude that diffusion in industrial markets is not a systematic, predictable process. If subsequent studies do not reveal however that the actions of other firms in an industry do not significantly influence the adoption decision, then the attempt to apply diffusion concepts to industrial markets must be abandoned. Diffusion will then be a statistical phenomenon, not a behavioral one, and therefore of little relevance for the industrial marketing strategists trying to plan the introduction of a significant new product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including "The Role of the Industrial Distributor in Marketing Strategy" by Frederick E. Webster Jr. in the July 1976 issue, "The FTC Improvement Act" by Gerald C. Udell and Philip J. Fischer, and "Marketing Research and the New Product Failure Rate," by C. Merle Crawford both in the April 1977 issue.

Discusses key issues relevant to using salesmen in the market research initiatives of firms in the U.S. Training and inclination; Field information; Policy implications on management.