The marketing firm is that business organisation which responds to the imperatives of consumer-orientation. Its style of management is marked by its adherence to the criteria of goal separation, participation in marketing transactions, entrepreneurial sovereignty and reciprocal entrepreneurial management, all of which are explored in this pioneering book. It assumes the proposition, uncontroversial enough to marketing academics and students, that contemporary firms can survive and prosper – achieve their financial goal, be it the maximization of profit or sales or growth – only if they respond appropriately to those imperatives: specifically, the forces that promote consumer discretion and consumer sophistication. Surprisingly, however, theories of the firm, based on economics, strategic management or behavioural science, show scant recognition of this observation which is abundantly clear from the most elementary treatment of marketing management. Renowned scholar Gordon R. Foxall argues that this proposition should form the starting point of a theory of the firm and explores its implications for marketing theory in the light of the findings of consumer behaviour analysis and research on the marketing firm. Hence, while pursuing a competence theory of the marketing firm based on the idealised implications of the imperatives of consumer-orientation, the book rests its conception on a groundwork of empirical evidence on consumer behaviour and corporate action.
Author(s): Gordon R. Foxall
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 399
City: Cham
Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Boxes
Part I: Introduction
1: Orientation
Part II: Conceptualising the Marketing Firm
2: Fundamental Considerations
Imperatives of Consumer-Orientation
Marketing, Function and Orientation
Marketing Transactions
Literal Exchange
Competitive Pecuniary Markets
Deployment of the Whole, Unified Marketing Mix
A Behaviourally Informed Competence Theory
Foci of the Theory of the Marketing Firm
Conclusions
3: Key Insights
Introduction
Marketing Costs
Transaction Costs
Agency Costs and the Firm as a Nexus of Contracts
Intermediation and the Separation Criterion
Entrepreneurship
Austrian Perspectives
Entrepreneurial Encapsulation
The Quest for the Completion of Production
Production: Essential But Insufficient
On the Financial Goal of the Marketing Firm
Preliminary Considerations
Profit-Maximisation
Sales-Revenue Maximisation
Profit-Constrained Sales-Revenue Maximisation
Conclusions
4: Managing Strategic Scope
Introduction
The Management of the Strategic Process
The Three Components of Managing Marketing Scope
The Creation of Marketing Intelligence (CMI)
The Formulation of Marketing Strategy (FMS)
Marketing Mix Management (MMM)
Information Requirements Over the Strategic Process
Marketing Incompleteness
Strategic Innovation
What the Marketing Firm Does
The Impetus Towards Marketing Completeness
The Management of Marketing Specialisation
The Ethos of the Marketing Firm
Entrepreneurial Encapsulation Revisited
Conclusions
Part III: Consumer Choice
5: A Précis of Consumer Behaviour Analysis
Introduction
Consumer Behaviour Analysis
The Consumer-Situationnnn
The Extensional Consumer-Situation
The Intentional Consumer-Situation
Patterns of Consumer-Situation as Micro-consumerates
Operant Classes of Consumer Behaviour
Patterns of Emotional Response
Bilateral Contingency: The Basis of Social Interaction
Conclusions
6: The Experience of Consumer Choice
Introduction
The Personal Meaning of Consumer Choice
Consumer Choice as Temporal Preference
Consumer A-rationality
Contingency-Representation
The Determination of Value
Some Marketing Implications of Subjective Experience
Conclusions
7: Social Behaviour and Symbolic Reinforcement
Introduction
Collective Intentionality: Constructing Social Reality
Social Acts and Shared Intentionality
A Continuum of Shared Intentionality
Symbolic Reinforcement
The Meaning of Symbolic Reinforcement
Reinforcement: Utilitarian, Informational and Symbolic
Conclusions
Part IV: Organisation
8: Linking Firm and Consumerate
Introduction
Bilateral Contingency, Transactions and the Market
Corporate Situation and Bilateral Contingency
Kinds of Interaction
The Concept of the Market
Transactional Value
Metacontingency
Contextual Systems
The Significance of Metacontingency
Conclusions
9: The Evolution of Consumption
Introduction
Systems of Coordination
SoC1: Individual Procurement
SoC2: Joint Procurement
SoC3: Sedentary Production
SoC4: Exchange
SoC5: Collective Procurement
SoC6: Selling and Marketing: Towards the Marketing Firm
The Role of Metacontingency
Conclusions
10: A Nexus of Bilateral Contingencies
Introduction
Multi-lateral Contingency
Patterns of Contingency in Economic Organisation
Empirical Questions
Operant Systems and Collective Intentionality
Bilateral Contingencies and the Marketing Firm
The Corporate Nexus
Intra-firm Bilateral Contingency
Extra-firm Bilateral Contingency
Bilateral Contingency in Marketing Integration
Symmetry and Stability of Bilateral Contingencies
Conclusions
Part V: Distinguishing the Marketing Firm
11: Compared with What?
Introduction
The Essence of the Marketing Firm
The Non-profit
Bilateral Contingency
Consumer-Orientated Management
Goal Separation
Market-Based Pricing and Competition
Entrepreneurial (Strategic) Process
Metacontingency
The Co-operative
The Purchasing Co-operative
The Marketing Co-operative
The Partnership
The State-Owned Enterprise
Conclusions
12: The Long Reach of the Market
The Charge of Managerialism
Managerial Autocracy
Supersession of the Market
Agency Theory Revisited
The Integrity of Ownership and Control
The Marketing Firm as a Human(e) Organisation
The Epicentre of Entrepreneurship
The Personal Dimension of Contractual Relationships
The Cardinal Relationship of the Marketing Firm
Levels of Selection
Conclusions
Appendix
Research on the Theory of the Marketing Firm
General and Conceptual Perspectives
Case-Study Methodology
Co-creation
Defining the Business
Environmental Concern
Individuals as Marketing Firms
Marketing and Finance
Marketing Firm in Comparison with Charitable Organisations
Reinforcers and New Product Development
Retailer and Consumer Contingencies
Social Media Strategy for Airlines
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
