Marketing: Evolution, Paradigms and Perspectives

Abstract

Birth of first marketing theory can be dated back to 1912 with Arch W.Shaw expressing a simplifying and unifying
principle in form a concept of application of motion to matter. Shaw argued that even if any phase of business is isolated and
put in anywhere, the essential element of business will be in application of motion to matter (McGarry, 1953). 1900 to 1920,
about two decades of developments that made economists to take note of the area of market distribution that was largely
ignored as the focus was more on creation of economic value, can be considered as the years of early development of the
marketing discipline. Before 1900, the concepts of markets, value, production, competition, role of government were already
part of extant economics literature and these concepts were integral part of the field of economics (Wilkie and Moore, 2003).
Broadly, with the shift in production economies from small scale production to mass customized production, scope of
marketing broadened to encompass changing exchange dynamics that moved from being economic exchange to social
exchange and accordingly, marketing role in the firm changed from functional to building profitable relationships with
stakeholders( Flambard-Ruaud, 2005).
The Aim of the paper is to draw attention on various fundamental marketing concepts being imported by various
other disciplines to fill up the voids left by academic marketing ( e.g product quality, product design is being best studied in
operations management and consumer insights are being developed by behavioral economics and no longer by marketing).
Accordingly, there is an emergent need to bring greater relevance to research which could be achieved through focusing on
four core domains: societal concerns, achieving profitable growth, dynamic resource allocation and the new marketspace.