Marketing Renaissance: Opportunities and Imperatives for Improving Marketing Thought, Practice, and Infrastructure

• Published in: Journal of marketing 2005-10, Vol.69 (4), p.1-25
• Main Authors: Brown, Stephen W., Webster, Frederick E., Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E. M., Wilkie, William L., Sheth, Jagdish N., Sisodia, Rajendra S., Kerin, Roger A., MacInnis, Deborah J., McAlister, Leigh, Raju, Jagmohan S., Bauerly, Ronald J., Johnson, Don T., Singh, Mandeep, Staelin, Richard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Business executives; Business structures; Consumer advertising; Consumer goods industries; Consumer research; Customers; Marketing; Marketing management; Readability; Research methods
• ISSN: 0022-2429; 1547-7185
• DOI: 10.1509/jmkg.2005.69.4.1

My three-year term as editor of Journal of Marketing concludes with the October 2005 issue. On the basis of my interactions with various people in the marketing community, I believe that marketing science and practice are in transition, bringing change to the content and boundaries of the discipline. Thus, I invited some distinguished scholars to contribute short essays on the current challenges, opportunities, and imperatives for improving marketing thought and practice. Each author chose his or her topic and themes. However, in a collegial process, the authors read and commented on one another's essays, after which each author had an opportunity to revise his or her essay. The result is a thoughtful and constructive set of essays that are related to one another in interesting ways and that should be read together. I have grouped the essays as follows: •What is the domain of marketing? This question is addressed in four essays by Stephen W. Brown, Frederick E. Webster Jr., Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp, and William L. Wilkie. •How has the marketing landscape (i.e., content) changed? This question is addressed in two essays, one coauthored by Jagdish N. Sheth and Rajendra S. Sisodia and the other by Roger A. Kerin. •How should marketing academics engage in research, teaching, and professional activities? This question is addressed in five essays by Debbie MacInnis; Leigh McAlister; Jagmohan S. Raju; Ronald J. Bauerly, Don T. Johnson, and Mandeep Singh; and Richard Staelin. Another interesting way to think about the essays, as Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp suggests, is to group the essays according to whether they address issues of content, publishing, or impact (see Table 1 ). These 11 essays strike a common theme: They urge marketers—both scientists and practitioners—to expand their horizontal vision. What do I mean by horizontal vision? In The Great Influenza, Barry (2004) describes the enormous strides that were made in medical science early in the twentieth century. His depiction of William Welch, an extremely influential scientist who did not (as a laboratory researcher) generate important findings, includes a characterization of the “genius” that produces major scientific achievements. The research he did was first-rate. But it was only first-rate—thorough, rounded, and even irrefutable, but not deep enough or provocative enough or profound enough to set himself or others down new paths, to show the world in a new way, to make sense out of great mysterie