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ARTICLE REVIEWGUIDELINE
 Article title: Establishing the scope of marketing practice: insights from practitioners
 Name of author: SallyDibb
 Journal: European Journal of Marketing
 Volume: Vol. 48 No. 1/2, 2014 pp. 380-404
INTRODUCTION
This paper clarifies the reach of marketing practice and the nature of activities that marketers
carry out. Establishing the scope of marketing practice is timely, as the diverse and challenging
environment in which marketers operate demands the use of well-tuned practices. Two
significant outcomes stem from delineating the scope and reach of marketing practice: first, a
contribution to the debate about the value of marketing to the organization; and second, the
potential to facilitate mutual learning about management practices and wider dissemination
among practitioners. Interest in the practice turn and the closer scrutiny of managerial
activities associated with it have been reflected in calls for marketing to prove its worth
to the organization. Although previous studies provide useful insights into marketing practice,
they do not explicitly examine the specific actions and activities which comprise marketing
practice. The investigation draws on various academic and practitioner sources that are
connected to the practice of marketing, resorting to a combination of research methods
including document analysis, qualitative interviews and quantitative data. Findings
have implications for marketing academics and practitioners regarding how marketing
is practiced and taught and for the future research agenda. The overall practice of management is
argued to involve a range of practices which embody a number of activities. Attention devoted to
the so-called “practice turn” in several functional management areas is encouraging scrutiny of
how these managerial activities are described and interpreted
OBJECTIVE OF THEARTICLE
The study examines the specific marketing activities, tasks and processes that are produced by or
involve marketers; even though some of these may take place outside of the marketing function.
The aim is to achieve a better understanding of the micro-level practices in which marketing
practitioners engage.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The study uses mixed methods, involving qualitative document analysis, qualitative interviews
and a quantitative managerial survey. This study combines qualitative text-based document
analysis, qualitative interviews and quantitative data collection. Methods were grouped in three
parts: a review of five widely-used introductory marketing textbooks and interviews with
academics concerning the coverage of these texts; an analysis of advertisements for marketing-
related job vacancies; and a quantitative managerial survey of marketing practitioners. The
decision to resort to various sources was aligned with the research objective to examine the
micro-level actions and activities which comprise marketing practice. The first two parts
of the data gathering provide an overview of how marketing practice is described
(textbooks) and specified (job advertisements).
Conclusions
The findings reveal consistency in the views of academics and practitioners across the following
disaggregated elements of practice: stakeholder and relationship marketing, customer analysis,
marketing-mix management/marketing planning, and the centrality of customers. However, when
these themes are integrated into broader categories of practice, the activities are parceled and
prioritized in different ways by the different data sources. Describing marketing practices is
fundamental to understanding both the scope of marketing practice and the actual value it adds to
the organization. This paper aims to clarify the reach of marketing practice and the nature of
activities that marketers carry out. This study has examined the reach of marketing practice by
uncovering the actual activities that marketing entails within firms. By better clarifying marketing
practice and its scope further refinements to empirical measurement instruments are
enabled. These may be used to unravel the multi-level phenomenon of the relationship
between practice and business performance. These requirements were satisfied by considering the
span and uniformity in how different sources view such practice. The question of consistency
between sources is strategically important because greater convergence between how
managers describe what they do and other descriptions of marketing practice might be
associated with claims about the discipline’s professionalism. If a relatively new
functional profession such as marketing is to compete with more established specialties,
it needs to develop a valid, empirical and stable classification of its own practic
Recommendation
The findings have implications for how marketing is practiced and taught and for the future
research agenda. This study has implications for how marketing is practiced and taught and
opens avenues for future research. Taking into consideration that marketing within an
organization is not practiced by marketers alone, calls for a greater understanding
about the value added by marketing as distinct from other functional areas and its
broader contribution. This paper does not make claims about marketing activities
which are undertaken by others in the organization, yet this topic deserves attention in
its own right. This idea that marketers and others perform marketing tasks, unveils the
area’s distinctiveness from other functions and increases the complexity of codifying
and measuring practice in the field. Finally, although in-depth qualitative interviews with
managers informed the content of the questionnaire used in this study, the survey method is
recognized to provide a limited view of the nature and implementation of practice. Therefore
there is scope for a programmed of deeper qualitative content to supplement the findings
reported here. Future research involving a series of in-depth interviews with marketing
professionals as they go about their work, perhaps combined with managers keeping a
daily diary of their activities, could shed further light on how and what these
individuals actually do in the course of their jobs.
4|Page
European Journal of Marketing
Establishing the scope of marketing practice: insights from practitioners
Sally Dibb Cláudia Simões Robin Wensley
Article information:
To cite this document:
Sally Dibb Cláudia Simões Robin Wensley , (2014),"Establishing the scope of marketing practice: insights from
practitioners", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 48 Iss 1/2 pp. 380 - 404
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EJM-04-2011-0212
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Audrey Gilmore, David Carson, Ken Grant, (2001),"SME marketing in practice", Marketing Intelligence & Planning,
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EJM48,1/
2
lishing the scope of marketing
practice:
insightsfrompractitioners
380 Sally Dibb and Cla´ udia Simo˜ es
Open University Business School, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK,and
Received 15 April 2011
Revised 6 August 2012 Robin Wensley
31 October 2012
Accepted 21 December 2012
Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Abstract
Purpose– Describing marketing practices is fundamental to understanding both the scopeof
marketing practice and the actual value it adds to the organization. This paper aims to clarify the
reach of marketing practice and the nature of activities that marketers carry out.
Design/methodology/approach – The study uses mixed methods, involving
qualitativedocument analysis, qualitative interviews and a quantitative managerial survey.
Findings– The findings reveal consistency in the views of academics and practitioners across the
following disaggregated elements of practice: stakeholder and relationship marketing,customer
analysis, marketing-mix management/marketing planning, and the centrality of customers. However,
when these themes are integrated into broader categories of practice, the activities are parceled and
prioritized in different ways by the different data sources.
Practical implications – The findings have implications for how marketing is practiced
andtaught and for the future research agenda.
Originality/value – This study considers the functional practices within marketing and
clarifiesthe scope of marketing practice.
Keywords Market orientation, Marketing management, Management practice, Marketing
concept, Marketing practice
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The overall practice of management is argued to involve a range of practices which
embody a number of activities. Attention devoted to the so-called “practice turn” in
several functional management areas is encouraging scrutiny of how these managerial
activities are described and interpreted (Schatzkiet al., 2001; Whittington, 2006).In
some functional areas these practices have become well defined and codified.
Research in human resources management (HRM) and operations management, for
example, has evolved to establish specific individual meanings (see Birdi et al., 2008)
and content for particular practices; while management accounting has developed a
more empirical and critical perspective on the enactment of practice (Ahrens and
Chapman, 2007). Yet strategic management and marketing have lagged behind in
European Journal of Marketing codifying relevant practices and describing the specific activities which managers
Vol. 48 No. 1/2, 2014
pp. 380-404 carry out (Ska˚leń and Hackley, 2011; Svensson, 2007). This paper clarifies the reach
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited of marketing practice and the nature of activities that marketers carry out[1].
0309-0566
DOI 10.1108/EJM-04-2011-0212 Establishing the scope of marketing practice is timely, as the diverse and
challenging environment in which
Estab
marketers operate demands the use of well-tuned practices.Two significant outcomes
stem from delineating the scope and reach of marketing practice: first, a contribution
to the debate about the value of marketing to the organisation; and second, the 381
potential to facilitate mutual learning about management practices and wider
dissemination among practitioners. Interest in the practice turn and the closer scrutiny
of managerial activities associated with it have been reflected in calls for marketing to
prove its worth to the organisation. A report by Deloitte (2008, p. 1) refers to a “lack
of a common understanding of marketing, and what it delivers to and within the
organisation .. . ” and calls for practitioners to clarify marketing’s role in achieving
growth. Meanwhile the Marketing Science Institute (MSI, 2012) has set a priority for
research to “better understand how organisational structure and marketing capabilities
influence business performance”. A need therefore exists to ascertain the nature of
what marketing practitioners actually do and to consider what contributions they
make to the wider organisation. There are also concerns that business schools are
becoming detached from managerial practice, and suggestions that the

professionalisation ofmanagement needs to be reconsidered (Ferlie et al., 2010) to
enable adequate models formanagement education to emerge. These fears echo
broader questions around the professionalisation of the managerial function itself, in
which issues of claimed jurisdiction are critical (Abbott, 1988).
Despite these developments, definitions of marketing practice are rarely found in
the literature (Kjellberg and Helgesson, 2006). Instead, various lines of inquiry frame
issues related to marketing practice. Studies focusing on the idea that the practice of
marketing rests on achieving a market orientation ( Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Narver
and Slater, 1990; Deshpande´ and Farley, 1998) conclude that all functional areas
need to be involved in achieving that orientation. The fact that other functions
participate in marketing practices reinforces the need to better understand the role
which marketing plays and can claim within the organisation. Following this line of
thought, Moorman and Rust (1999) argue that the marketing function is central to
managing the connection between the organisation and the customer; and that the
extent to which these contributions are well managed impacts on performance. Other
investigations rekindle the debate about the position and influence of marketing
within organisations also addressing the role of the department of marketing (e.g.
Verhoef and Leeflang, 2009). A stream of research examining ‘how firms relate to
their markets’ delineates profiles of marketing practice centreing on the degree to
which certain marketing attitudes and behaviours are exercised within the
organisation (Brodieet al., 2008; Coviello et al., 2003; Coviello et al., 2002). Other
studies examining the practice turn in marketing, consider marketing practices
from both consumption/consumer (e.g. Brownlie and Hewer, 2011; Schau et al.,
2009) and within the organisation (e.g. Fellesson, 2011; Jaakkola, 2011)
perspectives (Ska˚leń and Hackley, 2011); or address the partly overlapping idea of
how marketing produces markets (Araujo et al., 2010; Araujo, 2007), under a
“practice-based approach to markets and marketing” (Araujoet al., 2008).
Although previous studies provide useful insights into marketing practice, they do
not explicitly examine the specific actions and activities which comprise marketing
practice. Instead, they focus on the marketing’s broader role and contribution within
the organisation (e.g. Moorman and Rust, 1999; Verhoef and Leeflang, 2009), or the
prevalence of particular marketing practices (e.g. relationship or transactional) in
Scope ofmarketing practice

EJM4 2002; Coviello et al., 2000). That is, a “bottom-up”perspective of marketing and how it
8,1/2 is carried out by practitioners in the organisation is still under-researched (Ska ˚leń
and Hackley, 2011). This paper provides such a perspective by focusing on the
following empirical question: what is the scope of marketing practice? The study
examines the specific marketing activities, tasks and processes that are produced by or
involve marketers; even though some of these may take place outside of the
382 marketing function. The aim is to achieve a better understanding of the micro-level
practices in which marketing practitioners engage. The investigation draws on various
academic and practitioner sources that are connected to the practice of marketing,
resorting to a combination of research methods including document analysis,
r qualitative interviews and quantitative data. Findings have implications for marketing
e academics and practitioners regarding how marketing is practiced and taught and for
l the future research agenda.
a
t 2. Background
i Management practice
n The academic literature presents various definitions of practice and practices and what
g they entail ( Jaakkola, 2011). According to the theory of social practices perspective,
practices are routinized bodily performances controlled by certain sets ofmental
t activities, which are associated with objects, knowledge and language (Reckwitz,
o 2002, p. 251). Schau et al. (2009), p. 31) state that “practices are linked and implicit
ways of understanding, saying, and doing things. They comprise a temporally
m unfolding and spatially dispersed nexus of behaviours that include practical activities,
a performances, and representations, or talk”. Consequently, practice implies
r “intentionality” (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007) and is performative (Araujoet al.,
k 2008).
e Research in the management area has used the notion of practice(s) to consider the
t nature and effects of management practice and to carry out focused investigations
s addressing the role of specific management functions within organisations. Under the
general theme of management practices, Bloom and Van Reenen (2006) study
( practicesacross medium-sized manufacturing industries in the UK, the US, Germany,
e and France.They apply a measurement of management practices in four areas:
. operations, monitoring, targets, and incentives. Other researchers consider practice in
g
differentsettings, including HRM (e.g. Birdi et al., 2008; Brewster et al., 2008; Mart´ın-
.
Alca´zar et al.,2008; Wood and de Menezes, 2008), operations management (Cua et al.,
2001; Shah andWard, 2003; Voss, 1995), and finance and accounting (Ahrens and
C
Chapman, 2007; Nixon, 1995; Sangster, 1993). Such studies examine practice from
o
three broad perspectives: practice as a set of procedures embodied (codified) in
v
professional textsand/or that have professional roots (e.g. Sangster, 1993); practice as
i
entailing the actions and practices of people operating in a certain area (e.g. Ahrens and
e
Chapman, 2007); andpractice as defined by the required skills and job design (e.g. Dean
l
and Snell, 1991). Manyof the studies are concerned with specifying the impact of
l
functional practices on overallbusiness performance or other specific performance
o
measures (e.g. Birdiet al., 2008;Ichniowskiet al., 1997). A common denominator is that
these studies help to delineate theborders of practice for their respective functional
e
areas. Such delimitation contributes to the establishment of each function’s explicit
t
and distinctive knowledge and ideology (professionalism) and its respective progress
and status (professionalisation) (Ellson, 2008; Johnson, 1984; Whittington and
a
Whipp, 1992).
l
.
,
Abbott (1988) argues that a key role in developing and extending the jurisdiction Scope
of a particular profession lies in the nature of the abstraction involved. He identifies
two forms of abstraction for legitimizing such claims: a weak form in which the
ofmarketi
specific context is abstracted and a stronger form in which the subject is elaborated ng
in“.. . many layers of increasingly formal discourse” (p. 102). Within the practice
management field, Abbott (1988) suggests that professionalisation has mainly relied
on weakform abstractions. He further argues that where formalized abstractions exist,
these have not worked well, perhaps because the specific context is integral and 383
essential to understanding managerial issues.
Many textbooks claim to perform a significant role in codifying both knowledge
and practice. In marketing, and management as a whole, where useful
knowledgeabout practice is usually context dependent, the issue of what can and
cannot be incorporated in textbooks is contested. Duguid (2005, p. 112), for instance,
argues that practices cannot be fully codified into codebooks or textbooks:
The codification of knowledge may be less a matter of translation (though translation itself
is rarely innocent) than transformation, whereby the codified no longer serves the purpose of
the tacit it replaces. Uncodified knowledge provides background context and warrants for
assessing the codified. Background no longer works as background when it isforegrounded.
Furthermore, the few empirical and historical studies which examine the evolution of
textbooks in management tend to emphasize the incorporation of new research
andtheory rather than practice. For instance, in considering the evolution of business
financetextbooks Norgaard (1981, p. 43) anticipates a likely convergence between
texts for undergraduates and graduates, noting that “At the graduate level, texts will
continue to bring the students closer to current research and will better explain past
research”. Thecontent of mainstream textbooks in functional areas of management is
therefore likely tobe substantially convergent at any one point and to be rather past, or
at best present, orientated with respect to the codification of theory and practice. The
implication is thatmanagement in generic terms, and marketing specifically, are more
likely to expand theirjurisdiction by focusing on what Abbott terms “the actual work
of managers” and abstracting from this the particular tasks which can be
systematically routinized.
Marketing practice defined

Relatively few actual definitions of marketing practice are found in the marketing
literature. As Kjellberg and Helgesson (2006, p. 842) note “the term marketing
practice rarely has been defined, its most general use seems to be as a catchall for that
which is not marketing theory. In short, it refers to what sellers do (or should do).”
Reflecting on the American Marketing Association (AMA, 2012) definition of
marketing helps to delineate the basic scope of marketing activity: “Marketing is the
activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering,
andexchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society
at large” (approved October 2007). This definition describes marketing as the
performance of an activity, involving a set of institutions and processes, emphasising
value creation for customers and other stakeholders. This perspective widens the
scope of marketing to include its influence on society, a development that Sheth and
Uslay (2007, p. 306) consider to be“... certainly a step forward [because] it maintains
a stakeholder perspective, and it does not limit the scope of marketing to
organisations. The roles of institutions and processes, as well as marketing’s
impact on society, are clearly
EJM4 ons tend to overlook the “how” aspect of marketing and give little insight into the
detailed activities undertaken by practitioners which collectively comprise marketing
8,1/2 practice. An in-depth view of these activities from a practitioner perspective has the
potential to provide a much needed greater understanding of the nature and scope of
the marketing process (Gronroos, 2006).
The idea of marketing as a series of processes is reflected in some
384 “practitioner-oriented” books, many of which are more closely attuned than
traditional marketing textbooks to the actual context in which marketing practices
take place. McDonaldet al.(2000) introduce the notion of pan-company marketing
which they see as responsible for diffusing customer focus throughout the
a organisation, an idea that is developed in relation to the impact of digital marketing
c in McDonald and Wilson (2002). The processes involved in delivering superior
k customer value are the focus for Piercy (2009), while McDonald and Wilson (2011)
n examine those associated with developing and implementing marketing plans.
o
w Marketing practice: the marketing function and market orientation
l Despite the attention given to processes in the practitioner-oriented publications,
e theresearch literature on marketing practice tends not to focus on the activities
d performed bymarketing practitioners. Instead, studies examining the role of marketing
g consider marketing practice from a functional/cultural perspective and/or from a
e market orientation perspective[2]. Hooleyet al.(1990) develop a study that addresses
d the functional and cultural (guiding philosophy) components of marketing. They
. identify aspects related to the marketing function – namely, sales support, promotion,
” and customer needs identification and matching. In addition, they specify aspects
related tomarketing as a philosophy reporting the scope of marketing within the
E company – that is,confined to the marketing department or as a guiding philosophy
v for the entire organisation. Moorman and Rust (1999) establish that the marketing
e function isresponsible for managing the connection between the organisation and the
n customer. Thisconnection occurs predominantly at three levels: customer-product,
customer-servicedelivery and customer financial accountability. Verhoef and Leeflang
s (2009) extend thisview, attributing capabilities to the marketing department that
o include creativity, innovativeness, accountability and integration/co-operation with
, other departments.
The market orientation perspective addresses marketing from an organisational
m culture or from a market intelligence point-of-view. According to Darroch et al.
a (2004, p. 33): “[A] market orientation is a type of organisational culture [.. .] that is
r intensely customer-centric in focus, directing organisational decision making to meet
k explicit and latent customer needs at a profit”. Consequently, studies try to
e conceptualise market orientation and to gauge its impact on business performance.
t For example, Narver and Slater (1990) view market orientation as entailing three
i dimensions: customer orientation, competitor orientation, and interfunctional co-
n ordination. They identify a positive effect of market orientation on sales growth
g (Narver et al., 1999) and replicate the results in a subsequent study (Slater and
Narver, 2000). Focusing on market intelligence, Kohliet al.(1993) recognise distinct
d market orientation themes (i.e. intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and
e responsiveness) andalso view profitability as an outcome (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990).
f Following Narver and Slater and Kohli et al.’s seminal works on market orientation, a
i proliferation of studies looked at the relationship between market orientation and
n performance measures in
i
t
i
different types of companies and contexts. For example, Hooleyet al.(2000) and
Subramanian and Gopalakrishna (2001) consider market orientation in the contextof
transition economies, and Pelham (2000) examines market orientation within small 385
and medium-sized enterprises. Other researchers consider the relationship between
marketorientation and specific variables; for example, Lai and Cheng (2005) reveal that
marketorientation and quality orientation are complementary. However, none of these
studies explicitly refer to, or clearly define, marketing practice or practicesper se.
Marketing practice: how firms relate to their markets

A parallel area of research views marketing practice as entailing how firms relate
totheir markets (Brodie et al., 2008; Coviello et al., 2002). Coviello et al.(1997) and
Covielloet al.(2003) explicitly use the term “marketing practices” to refer to broad
notions of transactional marketing and relational marketing. Transactional marketing
centres on transaction marketing and involves achieving customer satisfaction by
managingthe traditional marketing mix, implying one-way communication from

sellers to buyers. Relational marketing embraces practices around ongoing company
and buyer relationships and may entail database marketing, e-marketing, interaction
marketing, and/or network marketing. Taking the organisation as the unit of analysis,
research in this area addresses marketing practice from multi-theory, multi-
method, and multi-dimensional perspectives and has evolved to gauge the prevalence
of practice across different firm types/sizes, business sectors, and cultures (e.g. Brodie
et al., 1997; Coviello et al., 2002; Coviello et al., 2000; Dadzie et al., 2008; Pels et
al., 2004).
Micro-level marketing practices

Existing research examining marketing practice tends to focus less on the micro-level
activities featured in the related literature on management practices. Kjellberg and
Helgesson (2006) suggest that practice should be regarded at the micro level and
should encompass the specific tasks undertaken by different players. By focusing on a
specific set of procedures it is possible to make empirical distinctions between “what
is done” and “how well it is done”. Although a focus on micro-level activities is
found in the management practice literature, it is rarely seen in marketing studies.
Thus the study presented here takes a practice-based approach to marketing, relying
on a “per formative idiom”, such that the research accounts for “emergent and
unfolding practices that actors engage in” (Araujoet al., 2008, p. 7).
Consequently, marketing practice can be considered to encompass the process and
tasks in which those operating within a marketing role in organisations engage. This
is intrinsically linked to the professionalisation of the field. In fact, research has
addressed marketing’s professional legitimacy and impact in dealing with clients and
with respect to other functions inside the organisation (Svensson, 2007). This line of
research includes, for example, work conducted by advertising agencies (e.g. Moeran,
2009) as marketing institutions. Yet the professional boundaries of marketing are
conflicting. Abbott (1988, pp. 233-4) explains the history behind this confusion:
Professional jurisdiction in (the) area[.. .] now called marketing was created through a slow
process of enclosure. Four groups participated – advertising, economics, journalismand
psychology. For the two academic fields of economics and psychology marketing was a
part-time activity. For advertising it provided a potential avenue to professional status, one
that proved to be [.. .] a dead end. For journalism, marketing provided an ambiguous link

EJM4 n and the practical realities of mediasupport. As might be expected, these diverse interests
clouded the marketing jurisdictionconsiderably.
8,1/2
This absence of boundaries is worsened by the blinkered view of actual marketing
practice conveyed in many marketing textbooks. As the earlier discussionexplained,
these problems emerge partly because new textbook editions tend to focus more on
incorporating new research and theory than on practice. Typically they focus little on
386 the context in which marketing takes place, portraying marketing as entailing
pre-established activities, tools and goals that are extrinsic to practitioners’
sense-making of their activity (Svensson, 2007; see Brownlie and Saren, 1997). Thus
although these textbooks help to shape how knowledge about marketing practice is
b developed and to establish marketing roles, they also reflect the often weak link
e between academic and practitioner worlds (Baines et al., 2009; Ford et al., 2010;
t Currieet al., 2010; Lee and Greenley, 2010).
w
The literature discussion raises questions regarding the scope of marketing practice
e
e and how it may be studied. Thus we used a multi-methods approach that we
n describenext.
i 3. Research design
t This study combines qualitative text-based document analysis, qualitative interviews
s andquantitative data collection. Methods were grouped in three parts: a review of
fivewidely-used introductory marketing textbooks and interviews with academics
q
u concerningthe coverage of these texts; an analysis of advertisements for marketing-
a related jobvacancies; and a quantitative managerial survey of marketing practitioners.
l The decisionto resort to various sources was aligned with the research objective to
i examine themicro-level actions and activities which comprise marketing practice. The
t first two partsof the data gathering provide an overview of how marketing practice is
a described (textbooks) and specified ( job advertisements). The job advertisements also
t provided insights into how practitioners portray their activities. These parts were
i deliberately exploratory and “bottom up”, avoiding preconceptions about how
v marketing practices would be designated. Instead, the marketing activities referred to
e
in the sources wereallowed to emerge, enabling a broad understanding of marketing
i practice to be captured.These sources helped to frame the roles which marketers carry
n out. The third part of the data collection, the quantitative managerial survey, enabled
f marketing practices to be specified by asking practitioners what they actually do
o within their organisation, thus capturing the “bottom up” nature of their activities.
r Despite the fact that this part of data gathering used a quantitative approach, the
m questionnaire content was derived fromqualitative interviews with managers. During
a this discussion a more detailed, bottom-up understanding of the scope and reach of
t marketing activities was achieved. Although the particular context in which market
i
practice occurs is not considered in the fieldwork, it ispossible from the data to derive
o
n patterns of marketing practice. To avoid inconsistenciesthat might arise as a
consequence of changing terminology, all data sources (publicationsand the survey) fit
j the data collection period.
u
r Text-based document analysis
i The text-based document analysis was qualitative through the exploration of
s emerging themes in the data that would capture the nature of marketing practice. Such
d
i
c
t
i
o
analysis enabled greater flexibility in defining categories through an iterative process
of data examination and coding (Bryman, 2001). The objects of analysis were
marketing textbooks and classified advertisements. 387
Textbooks analysis. Textbooks play an important role in shaping the marketing
syllabi for students in higher education and practitioners who take executive learning
courses. As most courses are insufficiently large to justify a custom-made text,
offerings tend to be broad in coverage to cater to a range of courses and students
(Dibb and Stern, 1998). In a climate in which learning resources are increasingly
available on the internet and book sales are declining, the desire among publishers for
high-volume texts is unlikely to change. At the same time, publishers are under
pressure to extend the time between revisions, currently around three to five years.
Although the resulting time lag between publication of research in scholarly journals
and inclusion in textbooks has fueled debate about the state of marketing knowledge
and the suitability of these books as a teaching source (Tregear, 2010),[3] no other
resources are likely to supersede these books in the short run. As such, their inclusion
as a way of framing marketing practice is warranted.
This study selected five widely-used introductory marketing textbooks for
consideration, three authored from the UK and two authored from the US. Combining
UK and US texts is appropriate since both types are widely used in the UK market
which is where the data were gathered. It is also the case that many of the UK
versions are derived from US equivalents. Guidance from two of the largest
publishers operating in the UK was used to identify the specific texts to be analysed,
based on their views about the most widely adopted texts in UK business schools at
the time. Introductory level texts were chosen, since such books are typically the first
academic source which marketing students encounter. In order to validate the
findings, results were cross-checked with the analysis of three additional introductory
texts (Adcock et al., 2001; Blythe, 2005; Hill and O’Sullivan, 2004). The textbook
review involved examining the basic marketing constructs included in the
introductory chapters of each book and the overall content’s scope of each text to
appreciate their coverage of marketing practice related topics.
The extent to which the content of the sources reflects what is actually taught was
validated and confirmed with interviewsconducted with five marketingprofessors
from three UK business schools. The interviews explored individuals’ understanding
of marketing practice and of the respective teaching contents. They further addressed
the relevance of the themes yielded by the textbook analysis and how they mirror
their teaching themes. Given the likelihood of a distinction between academic sources
used in the teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate (MBA) students, the
marketing professors were also questioned about differences between undergraduate
and postgraduate levels.
Classified advertisements analysis. The analysis of classified advertisements
captured a practitioner perspective on the scope of marketing practice. The study
collected data from job advertisements in the classified section ofMarketing Week, a
weekly publication aimed at UK-based marketing practitioners. These advertisements
provided a rich source of information about the tasks, activities, and responsibilities
associated with a range of marketing-related jobs, from which this study could gain an
understanding of the scope of marketing practice. The selected advertisements were
from eight issues of Marketing Week covering a three-month period. There was a

EJM4 issue to reduce the likelihood of the same advertisements being analysed more than
once. A new ‘start’ number was assigned to each magazine issue, with every tenth
8,1/2 advertisement being selected. Overall, the analysis entailed 10 per cent of
advertisements, for a total of 106 advertisements.
Two researchers working together followed a systematic process to analyse job
advertisements. Following Segal and Hershberger’s (2006) procedure, each job was
388 assigned a unique identifier to trace the job back to its original source if required.
They also noted the job title and reviewed the wording of each advertisement,
recording all references to the job tasks and responsibilities in a master list. To
generate the classification scheme, the researchers worked to identify the tasks
m andactivities included in the job specifications. In an initial pass-through of the data,
i they created a simple record of the details, making no attempt at this stage to either
n reduce or categorise the data. However, details of generic skill requirements (e.g.
i oral/written communications skills) and personal attributes (e.g. being calm in a
m crisis) were specifically excluded because they are not within the scope of this project.
u In a second pass-through of the data, the researchers sub-divided the activities in the
m master list into categories on which they had previously agreed. Although some
overlap between activities was evident during this classification process, the
o researchers considered the tasks distinct enough to be readily allocated to one of the
f groups. Two experienced marketing academics and one marketing researcher, all of
whom were unconnected with the research, subsequently checked and validated the
a classification.
t Managerial survey
w A parallel data collection involved the development and testing of a scale of
o marketing practice activities. Scale items were generated from qualitative exploratory
- interviews with marketing academics and practitioners in the UK, during which
w questions about the scope and components of marketing practice were posed. These
e interviews provided an in-depth understanding of the actions and activities which
e marketing practice entails. The questionnaire design was also informed by prior
k studies, from which some aspects of the scales were developed (e.g. Hooley and
Lynch, 1985). Although previously used measures were not specifically designed to
p capture marketing practice, they did encompass a detailed understanding of the range
e of activities and tasks associated with the marketing process. Overall, the research
r instrument investigated the degree to which firms engage in marketing actions and
i activities. The unit of analysis was the sub-unit of the organisation responsible for
o marketing and marketing practitioners were the key informants. Participants at a
d seminar reviewed the face validity of the scale items, which resulted in several
modifications being made. Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the main
b UK body of professional marketers, reviewed a piloted, paper-based version of the
e research instrument. Subsequently, the instrument was converted and tested foran
t online format.
w Data were collected through an e-mail survey of Chartered Institute of Marketing
e members as part of a regular electronic newsletter mailing. Participants clicked on a
e Web link that took them directly to the online questionnaire containing questions
n about marketing practice within the respondent’s organisation. A total of 146usable
questionnaires were obtained. Data analysis included exploratory factor analysis
e (EFA) applied to the marketing practice variables to test the data grouping and to
a
c
h
reduce the number of variables, followed by the computation of the coefficient alpha
(Churchill, 1979). This set of items was subsequently used in the confirmatoryfactor
(CFA) analysis to allow for a stricter interpretation of the assessment of construct 389
unidimensionality (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988).
The sample includes respondents working in a variety of marketing-related roles,
ranging from the most senior directors to people occupying more junior marketing
executive jobs, mostly in the areas of marketing management (e.g. channel
management, product management, marketing communications), international
marketing, business development, customer service, marketing research, and
marketing consultancy. Most of the respondents (82.2 per cent) had been in their
current position for five years or fewer and had been working for the company (74.5
per cent) for a similar period. They worked in a wide range of organisations operating
in business-to-business markets (26.9 per cent), services (37.6 per cent), the non-
profit sector (18.3 per cent), manufacturing (8.6 per cent), business-to-consumer
markets (5.4 per cent), and retailing (3.2 per cent).
4. Findings
Textbook results
The analysis of introductory chapters and textbook coverage highlights a range of
constructs, such as the marketing concept, market orientation, marketingprocess,
marketing management, and marketing practice. Table I provides a summary of the
textbook analysis; the first row reflects how each source captures the overall
marketing process (though not all sources use this exact terminology).
Definitions of the marketing concept are characterised by a focus onsatisfying
customer needs, the concept of a transaction, and the notion of an exchange of
something of value (e.g. a product) with something else (e.g. a financial reward)
(Kotleret al., 2005). A recurring theme is marketing’s role in helping firms achieve
their objectives ( Jobber, 2004). Similarly, “the marketing concept holds that the key
to achieving its organisational goals consists of the company being more effective
than competitors in creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value
to its chosen target markets” (Kotler, 2003, p. 19). Pride and Ferrell (2003) refer to
the marketing concept as a philosophy that guides an organisation’s activities,
enabling the firm to achieve goals and meet customer needs.
Action is sometimes implied through the process or activities associatedwith
marketing; that is, “marketing consists of individual and organisational activities that
facilitate and expedite satisfying exchange relationships in a dynamic environment
through the creation, distribution, promotion and pricing of goods, services and ideas”
(Dibbet al., 2006, p. 7). All the reviewed texts view market orientation as the
philosophy associated with marketing and the means through which organisations put
the marketing concept into practice. Achieving a market orientation is inherently
linked with the process of marketing, in that it is based on the notion of the actions
organisations must take to become customer focused. Pride and Ferrell (2003, p. 12)
draw directly from the work of Kohli and Jaworski (1990) on market orientation.
Jobber (2004) also stresses the strategic and proactive nature of this process for
identifying market opportunities. The objective of market-oriented organisations is to
create customer value, a recurring theme linked to the idea of customer satisfaction
(Pride and Ferrell, 2003).

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textbooks
Review of marketing
Table I.
0
39
48,1/2
EJM
Dibb et al. 2006 (UK) Kotler et al. 2005 (UK) Jobber, 2004 (UK) Kotler, 2003 (US) Pride and Ferrell, 2003 (US)
The Marketing Process: marketing mix creating competitive Shaping the Market Offering: Marketing Mix Decisions:
marketing opportunity and Understanding the Marketing advantage; competitive Product & branding strategy, product concepts, product
capability analyses, strategy Setting: marketing marketing strategy services, pricing strategies and development and
development, devising environment Marketing-Mix Decisions: programs management, branding and
marketing programs Understanding Markets: products, managing products, Managing & Delivering packaging, services, marketing
Marketing in Context: consumer and B2B, marketing brands and corporateidentity; Marketing Programs: Value channels and supply chain
marketing strategy, research new products, PLC and networks and marketing management, wholesaling,
competitive advantage, the Core Strategy: segmentation portfolios; pricing strategy; channels, retailing, physical distribution and
marketing environment and positioning, relationship promotion, advertising, wholesaling and logistics, retailing, IMC, advertising and
Understanding & Targeting marketing, competitive personal selling, sales integrated marketing PR, personal selling and sales
Customers: consumer and strategy management, DM, Internet communications, advertising, promotion, pricing concepts,
B2B buying behaviour, Strategic Marketing: strategic marketing; distribution sales promotion, PR and direct and setting prices
segmenting markets, targeting planning; annual, long-range Marketing Implementation marketing, managing the sales Implementation: marketing
and positioning, marketing and strategic plans; marketing & Application: managing force, managing total implementation and control,
research and MIS plans, marketing organization, marketing implementation and marketing effort marketing on the internet, e-
Marketing Mix Decisions: marketing control control marketing
product decisions, branding Marketing-Mix Development:
and packaging, NPD and product and brand strategy,
product portfolios, services; NPD, services; pricing;
place, channels, wholesalers, promotion, advertising, sales The Marketing Process:
distributors, physical promotion, PR, DM, IMC; Marketing Foundations: achieving satisfying
distribution, retailing; place, managing channels understand and define the exchanges with customers
promotion, marketing market, focus on customer through marketing-mix
communications, advertising, needs, create and implement activities, devised in
PR, sponsorship, sales, sales integrated marketing response to a dynamic
promotion, the internet, and programs, achieve profitability environment Marketing
DM; pricing concepts and Marketing in the Firm: objectives and Its Environment:
setting analysis of environment and Analyzing Marketing overview of strategic
Marketing Management: capabilities, development and Opportunities: market-oriented marketing, strategic
marketing planning and implementation of the strategic planning, information planning, the marketing
forecasting, implementing marketing mix gathering and measuring environment, social
strategies and measuring Fundamentals of Marketing: demand, marketing responsibility and ethics,
performance marketing planning, consumer environment, consumer and international marketing
and organizational buying business buying behaviour, Buyer Behaviour & Target
behaviour, marketing competition, market segments Market Selection:
environment, marketing and target markets marketing research and
research and MIS, market Developing Market Strategies: MIS, target markets,
The Marketing Process: segmentation and positioning positioning and segmentation and
analyses, strategy Competition & Marketing: differentiating, developing evaluation, consumer and
development, managing the analyzing competitors and new market offerings B2B buying behaviour
The notion of “process” is relevant to this study because the focus on marketing
practice includes the activities through which marketing principles areimplemented.
Kotler et al. (2005) describe the marketing process as marketing’s role within the firm 391
and the activities linked with it, including analyzing marketing opportunities,
selecting target markets, developing the marketing mix, and managing the marketing
effort. This view is consistent with the process Dibbet al.(2006) describe and is
implicit in Jobber’s (2004, pp. 6, 7) description that “market-oriented firms adopt a
proactive search for market opportunities, use market information as a basis for
analysis and organisational learning, and adopt a long-term strategic perspective on
markets and brands.” Further evidence of the marketing process appears in
discussions about “marketing management”, a term that describes the activities
associated with bringing about market orientation. According to Dibb et al. (2006, p.
28), the marketing process is “the process of planning, organising, implementing and
controlling activities to facilitate and expedite exchanges effectively and efficiently.”
Pride and Ferrell (2003) also describe this process, and Kotler et al. (2005, p. 13)
imply it in their description of “the art and science of choosing target markets and
building profitable relationships with them.”
Kotler et al. (2005) make the only direct reference to marketing practice, viewing
it as the manner in which firms effectively apply marketing principles. Kotler(2003)
refers briefly to marketing practice when explaining how the new economy is
changing traditional marketing, with increasing activity surrounding e-business and
customerrelationship management (CRM). Elsewhere, connections are implied in
descriptions ofactivities linked to the marketing process and marketing management.
Some authors drill down to describe marketing management elements; for example,
Pride and Ferrell (2003, p. 17) define planning activities linked with marketing
management as “a systematic process of assessing opportunities and resources,
determining marketing objectives, and developing a marketing strategy and plans for
implementation and control.” These sub-definitions reveal the marketing
tasks/activities that are associated with practice. Overall, this treatment of marketing
practice links the concept to the marketing activities/tasks in which companies
engage.
Textbook results validation: interviews with academics

In order to validate our analysis, interviews with marketing professors were used to
determine the thoroughness of the marketing topics in Table I and to consider the
need for tailoring of teaching delivery to reflect specific course or student body
requirements. All interviewees found the list of provided topics to be sufficient,
variously describing the content of a “fundamental” nature, “comprehensive” and
“complete”. They also suggested that although the basic or “fundamental” topics to be
covered alter little for different audiences, the manner of delivery may do so. As one
professor explained, “I do not think the topics differ a great deal at different levels.
Basically at higher levels of study (final year undergraduate, Masters or MBA), I
think that students should be synergizing aspects of the marketing process,thinking
critically and evaluating implications. I do not think the topics need to change for
them to be doing this.” Another described undergraduate teaching as being more
“concept-led”, with the emphasis at MBA “much more about application and the
practical circumstances encountered in ‘doing’ marketing”.

EJM4 ptures the range of reviewed advertisements and the diversity of the marketing roles
they contain. The tasks and activities range from the highly strategic, including
8,1/2 business development and visioning, to the distinctly operational, such as liaising with
agencies and copywriters. There were 15 senior strategic or business development
roles, 33 involving managing operations, 58 concerned with operational or
implementation aspects of marketing, with four junior support roles. A systematic
392 analysis enables the classification of these activities according to whether they are
related to “marketing strategy and business development and planning”, “analyzing
customers and context”, “managing customers”, and “marketing
management/managing the marketing mix” (see Table II). Although some of these
Classifi tasks are inherently more strategic than others, certain activities (e.g. brand
ed management) also include a mix of strategic and operational tasks. Therefore, the
advertis classification scheme is not intended to reflect a clear continuum from strategic to
ement operational activities. Furthermore, although areas of overlap exist between some of
results the activities, they did not cause allocation problems.

T Overall, the “marketing strategy and business development and planning” group
h was the most strategic in nature, including activities ranging from management of
e strategic initiatives, international development, and partnerships to
portfoliodevelopment, market segmentation, and project management. The “analyzing
a customers and context” group emphasised the insights and research required to
n understand customers and the broader competitive and business environment. This set
a included activities related to data management, statistical analysis, and shopper
l research. In the “managing customers” category, customer acquisition, development,
y and retention were central, with activities surrounding relationship management,
s CRM, and loyalty schemes. The “marketing management/managing the marketing
i mix” group was sub-divided toinclude activities associated with managing the
s product/brand (e.g. brand planning, newproduct development), channel/trade and
pricing (e.g. point-of-sale marketing, budget setting), and marketing communications
o (e.g. advertising, e-campaigns).
f
Managerial survey results
t The survey tested a preliminary marketing practices scale that, although not
h exhaustive in its range, encompasses a set of issues associated with the
e implementation of marketing and the associated activities. EFA was computed
using principal components analysis with orthogonal VARIMAX rotation. The
a extracted factor solution suggested three factors as dimensions of marketing practice
d (see Table II). Further results supported the retention of the three factors: the factors
v presented an alpha equal to or above 0.78 (the recommended threshold is 0.7), all
e items except “sales budgeting” presented high loadings with the respective factor, and
r the three factors provided a relevant significant amount of information that
t explained
i 67.66 per cent of the total variance. Therefore, these factors represent an adequate
s solution for the marketing practice scale.
e To test the goodness of fit of the proposed solution CFA was computed
m usingmaximum likelihood as the estimation procedure (see Table III). The general
e model’s fitindexes indicate an acceptable fit. Although the chi-square value was
n significant, othermeasures (e.g. goodness-of-fit index [GFI], normed fit index [NFI],
t Tucker-Lewis index[TLI], and comparative fit index [CFI]) indicated that the model
s had a reasonable fit
c
a
Scope
Job group Tasks and activities
ofmarketi
ng
Marketing strategy,
businessdevelopment and
planning
Strategic/business development;
overseeing strategic initiatives;
international development;
visioning; opportunity analysis;
portfolio development; PLC
management; business/marketing
planning; building/managing
partnerships and collaborative
opportunities; overseeing
marketing activities; market
segmentation, targeting,and
practice
393
data management and analysis; brand/market analysis; data planning;
Analyzing customers and developing targeting models; statistical analysis; managing data
context suppliers; performance measurement; competitive intelligence; panel
data analysis; shopper research
Customer management; customer acquisition, development, and
retention; relationship management; developing andimplementing
Managing CRM; customer service/client management; loyalty
customers:customer marketingschemes
acquisition andretention Product/brand
Brand management; brand strategy; brand planning; managingbrand
Marketing portfolio; brand innovation and development; product development
management/managing the (new/existing); product/brand marketing; brand communications;
marketingmix product launches
Channel/trade and pricing
Marketing management; managing the marketing mix; pricing;
positioning, project management, salesmanagement; telesales; call center management;
team management channelmanagement;trade marketing; supplier/third-party liaison;
store/branch marketing; point-of-sale marketing; retail space

Consu planning; category/range management; merchandising; packaging;
mer designing brochures; managing the customer experience; setting
resear budgets
ch/ins Marketing communications
ight; Marketing communications/IMC; managing marketing campaigns;
busin media strategy and scheduling; account management; developing
ess promotional materials; liaising with agencies; above the line (ABL),
devel below the line (BTL), and through the line (TTL) communications;
opme advertising; sales promotion; PR; sponsorship; display advertising;
nt direct marketing/mailing; customer communication; internal
insigh communications; affinity marketing; affiliate marketing; online and
ts; e-
campaigns; developing web site content; managing Webtraffic;
copywriting; events, exhibitions, and conferences Table II.
Job groupings
(i.e. measures had values close to or greater than 0.90). Convergent validity was also
supported because all the estimates were significant ( p, 0.01) and all indicators
revealed acceptable values for individual reliabilities (R 2 $ 0.50). In addition,the
three sub-constructs showed high levels of composite reliabilities (r$ 0.7) and
displayed elevated values for the variance extracted (VE $ 0.5). Discriminant validity
was revealed because the squared correlations between each pair of sub-constructs
produced a lower value than the respective variance extracted estimates (Fornell and
Larcker, 1981).
The empirically tested scale supported a tri-dimensional construct ofmarketing
practice: segmentation and branding, business/marketing planning, and customer
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practice
Dimensions of marketing
Table III.
4
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48,1/2
EJM
To what extent do you agree thatyour
organization regularly undertakes the EFA Cronbach’s Individual Variable’s Composite Variance
following. . . factorloading alpha reliability t-value reliability (r) extracted
s
Segmentation and branding 0.89 0.88 0.71
Market segmentation 0.813 0.56 10.26
New brand/product development 0.796 0.69 –
Brand/product management 0.792 0.89 13.24
Targeting customer groups 0.745 * *
Brand positioning 0.665 * *
Business/marketing planning 0.78 0.85 0.65

Marketing planning 0.848 0.83 –
Business planning 0.753 0.60 10.08
Brand planning 0.657 0.52 9.29
Category planning 0.608 * * * *
Salesbudgeting 0.432 * * * *
Customer management 0.82 0.85 0.74

Customer servicemanagement 0.879 0.70 9.33
CRM and/or loyalty management 0.830 0.77 –
Fit x2(p , df GFI NFI NNFI/TLI CFI
0.00000)
Modelfit 68.30 17 0.89 0.93 0.91 0.94
Notes: Respondents were asked to rate their assessment on a five-point scale, where 1¼strongly disagree and 5¼strongly agree; *Item removed after
confirmatory factor analysis
management. Dimension one, “segmentation and branding”, embodies strategic
dimensions of marketing processes, such as segmenting, positioning and brand
management. Marketing activities related to this sub-construct depict actions related 395
to market targeting and focus and brand/product management or development.The
second dimension, “business/marketing planning”, embraces marketing practice
features related to planning activities. In particular, this sub-construct entails
overarching items such as marketing and business planning and a more specific item
on brand planning. The final dimension, “customer management”, embodies an
articulated and continuous concern for the management of customers. This
sub-construct involves service management and the establishment and management
of long-term customer relationships.
5. Discussion
In addressing the scope of marketing practice, this paper has examined the micro-
level activities undertaken by marketers that collectively make up their practice.

Overall, the findings reveal consistency among the different sources of data
(textbooks, job advertisements, and survey). Common themes emerging from the
disaggregated data include stakeholder and relationship marketing, customer analysis,
marketing-mix management, and marketing planning, with all sources reflecting the
centralityof customers to marketing practice. Such consistency becomes less clear
when themes are integrated into broader categories of practice, with evidence that
activities are parceled and prioritised in different ways by the different sources. These
contrasts can be explained in two ways. First, they reflect the variety of organisational
activities that have a marketing dimension, and that not all activities are located
within the marketing function. Although this issue was not within the scope of this
study, they further reflect that not all aspects of marketing practice are carried out by
marketers alone. Second, they illustrate that the perspectives of the sources are shaped
by the interests of those responsible for them and those they serve.
In general, textbooks take a discrete, even disaggregated view of marketing
activities, perhaps because their role is to present information in an accessible way or
because their main focus is on marketers within the marketing function. Material from
this documentary analysis views marketing as a process involving strategic and
operational activities that firms implement. The activities or tasks associated with the
marketing concept, with achieving a market orientation, with the marketing process,
and with marketing management represent what is considered to be marketing
practice. The textbook analysis is unclear about the extent to which a marketing
activity must be enacted through the firm to be called a practice, but implies that
marketing practice can be confined to the unit level, though both non-marketersand
marketing personnel also should enact it more widely.
The job advertisements reflect a more integrated perspective on tasks, although this
varies for different jobs. Many of the advertisements encompass activities that are
strategically grounded, such as planning, business development, and international
development and which presumably are which may not be carried out by marketers in
isolation. Customer management or customer analysis were prominent features in
many of the jobs, supporting the notion that marketing is responsible for managing
thecustomer relationship on behalf of the organisation and that these activities are
central tomarketing practice. The gathering and analysis of customer and market
insight is also

EJM4 his finding aligns with Marketing Science Institute research priorities which question
“How do you hire for insight and creativity” and around the novel pressures on
8,1/2 marketers“.. . to interpret massive quantities ofunstructured data and to turn them into
actionable insights” (MSI, 2012). Finally, the job advertisements also covered a wide
range of activities regarding marketing-mix practice. Overall, the advertisements
seeking senior/strategic roles, such as business development,use more integrated
396 descriptions of job activities than those for junior staff. Often, descriptions involve
“wrapping” strategic and tactical job elements together, which makes the traditional
distinction between these aspects less evident.
The managerial survey conceptualised marketing practice as a multi-dimensional
s construct, in which the sub-constructs entail the degree to which firms engagein
t marketing activities. The empirically-tested scale suggests that marketing practice
r involves the integration of a wide range of activities, supporting a tri-dimensional
o construct of marketing practice: segmentation and branding, business/marketing
n planning, and customer management. Overall, this source generated the most
g integrated view of which marketing activities comprise marketing practice, with
l strategic and operational elements included in each of the dimensions rather than
y appearing distinct and separate.
Although this investigation focuses on activities within marketing’s jurisdiction,
f thedistinction between functional and organisational-wide activities is clearly reflected in
e thefindings. Specifically, marketing practice is shown as comprising two sets of
a activities: those that usually are specific to marketing and which tend not to be carried
t out by other functional areas; activities that are more broadly applied across the
u organisation and to which marketers (but also other organisational members) may
r contribute. For example, some marketing skills, such as brand management and the
e design of marketing communications, are specifically within the domain of
d professional marketers, the responsibility for other skills, such as customer service
provision and the portrayal of brand identity, falls more broadly on organisational
i members. Though with different aims, textbooks and job adverts frame such
n marketing roles. Introductory marketingtextbooks focus primarily on marketing
activities. Although some of these books attemptto locate these activities within
t broader organisational practice, they more typicallyprioritise those occurring within the
h marketing function. Classified advertisements, whichare usually prepared by human
e resources professionals, capture activities carried out by individuals who consider
themselves as marketers within the function, as well as those which are of broader
a relevance to the organisation and to which marketers contribute.Respondents to the
d managerial survey were marketing professionals, many of whom hadstudied for
v marketing qualifications. The marketing scale combines activities ranging from those
e which are more usually the domain of marketers within the marketing function, such
r as brand management and sales budgeting; to broader organisational activities to
t which marketers (and sometimes other organisational members) contribute, such as
i business planning and customer service management.
s
e 6. Conclusions
m This study has examined the reach of marketing practice by uncovering the actual
e activities that marketing entails within firms. Results revealed the wide scope and
n diversity of marketing practice, ranging from tactical activities carried out within the
t marketing function or department, to contributions (both tactical and strategic) that
s
.
T
were more widely spread through the organisation. These strategic activities are akin Scope
to the notion of marketing as a series of firm-level processes and similar to the idea of
pan-company marketing described by McDonaldet al.(2000). By better clarifying
ofmarketi
marketing practice and its scope further refinements to empirical measurement ng
instruments are enabled. These may be used to unravel the multi-level phenomenon of practice
the relationship between practice and business performance (e.g. Reinartz et al., 2004;
Van Bruggen and Wierenga, 2005).
In addition, to fully capture marketing’s contribution to the organisation, research 397
ought to examine its worth reflecting the breadth of the practice that was revealed in
this study. Marketing practice, it seems, is both strategic and tactical; it is located
within the marketing department as well as being widely spread throughout the
organisation; and,finally, although this study focuses on marketing professionals,
marketing is also carriedout by others within the firm. Thus the scope and influence of
marketing occurs in distinctive forms that are different from practice in other
functional areas of management. As a discipline, marketing ought when considering

its value to the organisation, to take into account that its contribution and practice is
specific to the marketing function, yet is also present in other organisational-level
activities.
A number of routes were used to develop a better empirical grounding and to test
the theoretical validity of the activities associated with marketing practice. These
routes acknowledge that understanding the scope and reach of marketing practice
requires familiarisation with the context in which activities take place and the
gathering of insights from those who undertake them. These requirements were
satisfied by considering the span and uniformity in how different sources view such
practice. The question of consistency between sources is strategically important
because greater convergence between how managers describe what they do and other
descriptions of marketing practice might be associated with claims about the
discipline’s professionalism. If a relatively new functional profession such as
marketing is to compete with more established specialties, it needs to develop a valid,
empirical andstable classification of its own practice. Achieving this status can be
particularly difficultwhen many other professions already claim legitimacy in related
areas (Abbott, 1988).
7. Implications and futureresearch

This study has implications for how marketing is practiced and taught and opens
avenues for future research. Taking into consideration that marketing withinan
organisation is not practiced by marketers alone, calls for a greater understanding
about the value added by marketing as distinct from other functional areas and its
broader contribution. This paper does not make claims about marketing activities
which are undertaken by others in the organisation, yet this topic deserves attention in
its own right. This idea that marketers and others perform marketing tasks, unveils the
area’s distinctiveness from other functions and increases the complexity of codifying
and measuring practice in the field. This has implications for the professionalisation
of marketing practice, which should not necessarily follow the same direction as for
areas like accounting and HR. Creative research designs are needed to test the extent
to which and the way that different organisational members contribute to marketing
practice across a range of contexts.
Marketing teachers should be aware that textbooks present a more disaggregated
view of marketing practice than that expressed by practitioners, who suggest a greater
EJM4 ies. Moreover, the emphasis is often on the activities carried out by marketers within
8,1/2 the marketing function, rather than on thebroader organisational activities to which
marketers and other organisational employeescontribute. For example, the customer
management theme although dominant in the quantitative study and job
advertisements’ analysis, was less apparent in the textbooks.Consequently,
implications might exist in relation to marketing teaching not sufficientlyreflecting the
398 needs or activities of practitioners. Given existing concerns about the professionalism
and jurisdiction of marketing, this disconnect might add to marketing academics’
concerns about the status of marketing as a management function.
There is also room to investigate the relevance of academic research to practice
i and the role practice can play in informing such research (see Ford et al., 2010; Van
n Aken, 2005). Although limited data were collected with marketing
t academics/professors, findings suggest a gap in academics’ understanding of
e marketing practice and how such understanding is reflected in teaching content and
g materials. Deeper consideration of the interplay between academic research in

r marketing practice and its influence in teaching content is warranted. In addition,
a while a broad examination of academic sources used at different levels of study was
t beyond the scope of this paper, it is necessary to understand these differences.
i Marketing professors reflected the need for “synergizing aspects of the marketing
o process” when teaching at a more advanced level. In general, MBA texts are more
n practice-based or focus more overtly onthe marketing process, whereas introductory
texts (as the ones used in this research) represent students’ first encounter with
o academic sources detailing marketing practice. Comparing and contrasting the
f “marketing as process” approach typical of many practice-based manuals with more
traditional textbooks is a priority, given the former are more concerned with the
m contribution of marketing activities throughout the organisation and with the context
a in which they occur.
r Finally, although in-depth qualitative interviewswith managers informed the
k content of the questionnaire used in this study, the survey method is recognised to
e provide a limited view of the nature and implementation of practice. Therefore there
t is scope for a programme of deeper qualitative content to supplement thefindings
i reported here. Future research involving a series of in-depth interviews with
n marketing professionals as they go about their work, perhaps combined with
g managers keeping a daily diary of their activities, could shed further light on how and
what these individuals actually do in the course of their jobs.
t
a
s Notes
k 1. Different authors use the terms “marketing practice” and “marketing practices” in different
s ways. In this paper we use “marketing practice” to refer to the overall set of marketing
practices in which practitioners engage. We use the terms “marketing practices” to referto
a the specific micro-level marketing activities and tasks that are carried out by marketers.
n 2. A parallel discussion pertains to the existing gap between theory and practice and relates to
d how scholars and practitioners either connect or do not connect (e.g. Hales, 1999; Wensley,
2002). However, an in-depth analysis of the various contributions is beyond the scope of
a thisstudy.
c 3. For further information about this debate, see the work of Rossiter (2001), Hackley (2003),
t Ellson (2008), Tappet al.(2006), and Stringfellow and Ennis (2006).
i
v
i
t
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Further reading
Baker, M.J. (2005), “Marketing – philosophy or function?”, in Baker, M. (Ed.), Marketing
Theory: A Student Text, Thomson Learning, Mason, OH, pp. 1-20.
EJM4 ally Dibb is Professor of Marketing and Director of the Institute for Social Marketing at the
Open University Business School. Her research interests are in marketing practice, marketing
8,1/2 strategy, and consumer behaviour, on which she has published extensively. She haswritten
seven books and has published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing
Science,EuropeanJournal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management,Services Industries
Journal, LongRange Planning, and OMEGA, among others. Sally Dibb is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at:[email protected]
404 Claúdia Simo˜es is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the Open University Business School.
Sheholds a PhD in industrial and business studies from Warwick Business School. Herresearch
interests and publications are in overall practices of marketing and in corporate identity, image,
brand and reputation. She has been a visiting fellow in Warwick Business School.
About Robin Wensley is Professor of Policy and Marketing at the Warwick Business School and
the hasbeen Director of the ESRC/EPSRC Advanced Institute of Management Research based in
author Londonsince 2004. He is also Dean of the Senate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He
s has published a number of articles in theHarvard Business Review,theJournal of
MarketingManagement and the Strategic Management Journal and has twice won the annual
S
Alpha Kappa Psi award for the most influential article in the USJournal of Marketing.
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