A Mental Model for Teaching Strategic Marketing Management

Abstract

The complex realities of the increasingly global nature of business require managers who are able to see and comprehend the multiple interrelationships of factors in the environment to optimize decision making. This paper offers a mental model used by the authors to help students better understand the heuristic thinking processes that successful strategic marketing managers use in decision making and problem solving. The authors argue that seeing the “whole” marketing system and understanding how to integrate marketing knowledge is a key ingredient in heuristic thinking. To this end, the paper details the foundation for and the construction of a mental model for a strategic marketing management course. An application is discussed.