Macromarketing and the Systems Imperative

Abstract

Macromarketing is definitionally concerned with systems — marketing, markets and society — and their interactions. This paper lays out a case for systems research in macromarketing, the use of methods designed to study systems. In doing so, it highlights the limitations of much micromarketing research. Macromarketing and the Journal of Macromarketing is the home of systems research in marketing. Macromarketing scholars need to increase our use of systems research methodologies. We also need to connect macromarketing to wider, particularly business, systems research. Following the calls by this Journal’s first editor George Fisk, systems research must not live in our discipline and journal alone, all social sciences need the insights of systems research and systems research needs the insights of macromarketing.