Special Session: How does Marketing Fit in the World? Questions of Discipline Expertise, Scope, and Insight: An Abstract

There has been much discussion within the marketing literature about marketing’s influence both within the firm and within the family of academic business disciplines (e.g., Clark Key et al. 2014; Eisend 2015; Homburg et al. 2015). This begs the question of whether or not marketing provides the relevant answers and knowledge base needed in areas of theoretical and conceptual innovations that reflect the changing social, technological, and global growth-oriented realities of the twenty-first century (Webster and Lusch 2013; Ferrell and Ferrell 2016). These issues signal the significant change to business models, growth strategies, marketing channels, customer relationship management, as well as the domain of mainstream marketing research, its methodology and relevance. Inquiries into the adequacies of marketing’s extant knowledge base for continued development may uncover intellectual, methodological, and conceptual ruts that further distance marketing scholarship from its proper place in knowledge creation at every level of the firm and academic scholarship.

The purpose of this Special Session is to stimulate critical, forward-looking conversation on the nature of marketing insight, its place in the firm, and in the family of business disciplines. Questions of marketing’s ability to create relevant understanding within various contexts: in the marketplace; in the lives of consumers, in society, will be taken up, with a view to addressing marketing’s ability to answer, “how does marketing fit in today’s world?”