Marketing Schools of Thought and Their Present Day Relevance

Abstract

The present article is the compendium of the 12 schools of thought (namely, ‘commodity’, ‘functional’, ‘regional’, ‘institutional’, ‘functionalist’, ‘managerial’, ‘buyer behaviour’, ‘activist’, ‘macro-marketing’, ‘organizational dynamics’, ‘systems’ and ‘social exchange’) in the marketing discipline since its inception in the early 1900s. These 12 schools of thought belong to the four quadrants on the two dimensions, namely ‘Interactive/Non-interactive’ perspective and ‘Economic/Non-economic’ perspective. The similarities, dissimilarities and focal points of these schools of thought have been briefly discussed. The article highlights, how the focal points across the schools of marketing thought have been continuously changing. The major contributions under these schools have also been discussed. Further, the article provided a general overview and criticism of these schools of the marketing discipline. The article further discusses the five controversies around the history of marketing, which are about the dominant perspective in marketing, the relationship between marketing and society, homogeneity of the internal subdivisions of marketing, the debate about marketing as science or arts and the creation of the general theory of marketing. The article also discusses the important issue of plugging the gap between the academic and managerial perspectives of the marketing theories.