Marketing knowledge myopia.pdfVIP

Marketing knowledge myopia Peter November School of Marketing and International Business, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not marketing academics practise what they preach. Are they marketing-oriented in their main business of knowledge creation and dissemination? Design/methodology/approach – The epistemological marketing literature and performance at producing true marketing knowledge are critically reviewed. Practitioner marketing knowledge is investigated through the literature, personal contacts and a simple direct research study. Findings – The paper finds that only one kind of knowledge, so-called “marketing science”, is now regarded as valid. Unfortunately, this kind of knowledge can only be built through extensive and independent testing. After 50 years of following this approach, the output is very small, very expensive and largely of no interest to practitioners because marketing knowledge means something quite different to them. Marketing academics have become myopic as to what marketing knowledge is, and they have become production-oriented, with the objective of producing as much of it as possible. Practical implications – There is a need to stop trying to tell practitioners what to do and to shift one’s research emphasis to conceptual humanism, postmodern science, direct and action research, tools for practitioners, marketing facts, and educating the whole student. Originality/value – The paper has made an attempt to change the course of marketing academic literature. Keywords Marketing, Epistemology, Generation and dissemination of information, Customer satisfaction, Academic libraries Paper type Conceptual paper Introduction epistemology n. The study of knowledge; one of the five classical fields of philosophical inquiry: epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, logic and metaphysics. Epistemology asks the questions: What is knowledge? How do we obtain it? How