Marketing – Summary – UvA – Grade: 8,5
MARKET ORIENTATION
Marketing Doctrine: A Principles-Based Approach to Guiding Marketing Decision Making in
Firms – Goutam Challagalla, Brian R. Murtha, & Bernard Jaworski.
Problem:
More insight into the construct of marketing doctrine, how it can be developed, development
of a conceptual model that identifies the antecedents (voorlopers) / consequences of
marketing doctrine use.
Moderating effects of three unpredictable environments (competitive intensity, market
turbulence, structural flux) on marketing doctrine use-performance relationship.
Marketing doctrine clarifies the crucial marketing choices that a firm should make to
compete in its markets. Definition marketing doctrine: a firm’s unique principles, distilled
from its experiences, which provide firm-wide guidance on market-facing choices.
Extant literature review (theoretical background)
Perspectives for decision making
Marketing doctrine is the third perspective “for developing a common approach to decision
making that allow differing degrees of flexibility”. First two perspectives:
1. “Mechanistic approaches that direct decision making by provided stand operating
procedures. For well-structured tasks useful, but limited in flexibility and applicability to
strategic marketing tasks.
2. “Organic approached that inculcate employees with shared values and norms to guide
decision making.” More flexibility, but limited in the guidance to marketing decision making.
Reasons for a principles-based approach
1) “Principles are rules of thumb or high-level laws often distilled from experiences.”
2) “Principles help address the classic consistency-flexibility dilemma that firms face.”
3) “Principles are relatively easy to remember and communicate to others.”
Data collection:
Exploration of the concept marketing doctrine by the use of a discovery-oriented, theories-in-
use approach with 35 executives from several industries.
Blend of in-depth interviews with extant literature: qualitative interview perspectives
complemented with multidisciplinary review of doctrine from law, military and religion.
In addition complemented with archival data on marketing doctrine from proff. services firm.
, Data analysis:
Coded the transcripts and archival documents by open coding, analyzed the text using the
terminology of participants -> first-order categories. Thereafter axial coding: reassembled
the data to relationships between and among the categories-> second-order categories.
Core findings:
Construct
The construct derived from the results (table 2) is: “Marketing doctrine refers to a firm’s
unique principles, distilled from its experiences, which provide firm-wide guidance on market-
facing choices. As such, marketing doctrine provides a firm-wide common approach to
decision making.”
Market doctrine need to be focused on critical marketing choices.
Related constructs
Comparison between market orientation and marketing doctrine:
“Market orientations refers to firm-wide generation, dissemination, and responsiveness to
market intelligence. The purpose of market orientation is to become more customer and
competitor focused, whereas the purpose of marketing doctrine is to guide marketing
decision making (e.g., segmentation, branding) in a consistent manner within a firm.
Marketing doctrine is much more specific and directive than the more general behaviors in a
market-oriented firm.”
Marketing doctrine development
Identify principles in marketing doctrine by learning from experiences.
Articulate marketing doctrine: degrees of flexibility, simplicity and explicitness.
Sustaining: firms may do periodic assessments when they encounter a novel
situation.
Antecedents & consequences
Likelihood of differences in marketing decision making increases when firms pursue
diversification strategy, that is, they operate in diverse geographies (international
diversification) or expand their portfolio (product diversification).
Similarly the case: differences in marketing decision making increases when decentralize
marketing structure (either marketing authority or activities).
MARKET ORIENTATION
Marketing Doctrine: A Principles-Based Approach to Guiding Marketing Decision Making in
Firms – Goutam Challagalla, Brian R. Murtha, & Bernard Jaworski.
Problem:
More insight into the construct of marketing doctrine, how it can be developed, development
of a conceptual model that identifies the antecedents (voorlopers) / consequences of
marketing doctrine use.
Moderating effects of three unpredictable environments (competitive intensity, market
turbulence, structural flux) on marketing doctrine use-performance relationship.
Marketing doctrine clarifies the crucial marketing choices that a firm should make to
compete in its markets. Definition marketing doctrine: a firm’s unique principles, distilled
from its experiences, which provide firm-wide guidance on market-facing choices.
Extant literature review (theoretical background)
Perspectives for decision making
Marketing doctrine is the third perspective “for developing a common approach to decision
making that allow differing degrees of flexibility”. First two perspectives:
1. “Mechanistic approaches that direct decision making by provided stand operating
procedures. For well-structured tasks useful, but limited in flexibility and applicability to
strategic marketing tasks.
2. “Organic approached that inculcate employees with shared values and norms to guide
decision making.” More flexibility, but limited in the guidance to marketing decision making.
Reasons for a principles-based approach
1) “Principles are rules of thumb or high-level laws often distilled from experiences.”
2) “Principles help address the classic consistency-flexibility dilemma that firms face.”
3) “Principles are relatively easy to remember and communicate to others.”
Data collection:
Exploration of the concept marketing doctrine by the use of a discovery-oriented, theories-in-
use approach with 35 executives from several industries.
Blend of in-depth interviews with extant literature: qualitative interview perspectives
complemented with multidisciplinary review of doctrine from law, military and religion.
In addition complemented with archival data on marketing doctrine from proff. services firm.
, Data analysis:
Coded the transcripts and archival documents by open coding, analyzed the text using the
terminology of participants -> first-order categories. Thereafter axial coding: reassembled
the data to relationships between and among the categories-> second-order categories.
Core findings:
Construct
The construct derived from the results (table 2) is: “Marketing doctrine refers to a firm’s
unique principles, distilled from its experiences, which provide firm-wide guidance on market-
facing choices. As such, marketing doctrine provides a firm-wide common approach to
decision making.”
Market doctrine need to be focused on critical marketing choices.
Related constructs
Comparison between market orientation and marketing doctrine:
“Market orientations refers to firm-wide generation, dissemination, and responsiveness to
market intelligence. The purpose of market orientation is to become more customer and
competitor focused, whereas the purpose of marketing doctrine is to guide marketing
decision making (e.g., segmentation, branding) in a consistent manner within a firm.
Marketing doctrine is much more specific and directive than the more general behaviors in a
market-oriented firm.”
Marketing doctrine development
Identify principles in marketing doctrine by learning from experiences.
Articulate marketing doctrine: degrees of flexibility, simplicity and explicitness.
Sustaining: firms may do periodic assessments when they encounter a novel
situation.
Antecedents & consequences
Likelihood of differences in marketing decision making increases when firms pursue
diversification strategy, that is, they operate in diverse geographies (international
diversification) or expand their portfolio (product diversification).
Similarly the case: differences in marketing decision making increases when decentralize
marketing structure (either marketing authority or activities).
