The Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing by Tadajewski Mark; & Matthew Higgins & Janice Denegri-Knott & Rohit Varman

Author:Tadajewski, Mark; & Matthew Higgins & Janice Denegri-Knott & Rohit Varman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2018-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

RM has influenced the marketing discourse to such an extent that there has undoubtedly been a rhetorical shift from competition and conflict, to mutual cooperation and interdependence (Sheth & Parvatiyar, 1995). The language of transactions has also been eschewed in favor of the management of marketing relationships (Dwyer et al., 1987; Hunt & Menon, 1995; Webster, 1992). Much of the appeal of RM for the mainstream has been that relational approaches frame marketing in a positive light (Fischer & Bristor, 1994; Fitchett & McDonagh, 2000; Smith & Higgins, 2000) creating the potential for win-win outcomes for all market actors (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). RM is often seen as ‘a more progressive concept for marketing and a more progressive discourse for consumers’ (Fitchett & McDonagh, 2000, p. 211). Despite this, RM has not emerged as the dominant discourse in marketing, rather, it co-exists alongside the more traditional marketing management discourse, and the newer hybrid discourse of CRM. This is because although the language and values introduced by relational perspective are inherently appealing, so too is the assumption that relationships can be effectively managed by the seller. However, ‘we must question the view that a company can develop its own independent, entrepreneurial strategy at all, or that a supplier should, or even can develop its own general or customer-specific marketing mix to business customers’ (Ford & Håkansson, 2006, p. 252). Recent thinking challenges the manageability of markets and/or marketing (Ford & Mouzas, 2013; Håkansson, 2006; Ford & Håkansson, 2006; O’Malley, 2014; Wilkinson & Young, 2013) and is thus deserving of greater attention within the academy.

The discussion highlighted that the distance between domains differs for each context in which the metaphor is applied. In situations that ‘actually feature an interpersonal relationship, either between an employee of a buying organization and an employee of a selling organization, or between an employee of a service organization and a customer’ (O’Malley et al., 2008, p. 172), there is insufficient between-domains distance for the process of metaphoric transfer to be creative. While between-domains distance between firm-to-firm and marriage initially appeared to be sufficient, the use of social exchange theory reduced the within-domain distance to such an extent that it served to do little more than make ‘the familiar more familiar’.

A number of alternative metaphors have been offered which might re-invigorate our thinking about exchange in different contexts. In contrast to extant use of the marriage metaphor, both alternatives eschew simplistic assumptions that interactions can be ‘managed’ by one of the partners, or that those interactions are part of an inevitable deterministic process toward greater interdependence. Thus, further attention is directed toward the inherent unmanageability of many exchange situations and to interrogate what this might mean for contemporary theory and practice in marketing.

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