Robert W. Nason

Distinctive Marketing and Information Technology Capabilities and Strategic Types: A Cross-National Investigation

The authors examine the relationship between strategic type and development of distinctive marketing, market-linking, technology, and information technology (IT) capabilities to implement innovation strategy. They hypothesize that prospectors must build technical and IT capabilities, whereas defenders develop market-linking and marketing capabilities. The authors collect data from 709 firms across the United States, Japan, and China. They find support for their capability hypotheses, as well as for some of their cross-national hypotheses that are based on cultural and business environment differences among the three countries. In particular, they find support for the hypotheses that Japanese firms have greater technology and IT capabilities than U.S. firms of the same strategic type. They conclude with implications for management.

Toward A Unified Theory of Macromarketing: A Systems Theoretic Approach

This article explores the analytic nature and domain of macromarketing from a systems theoretic perspective. Macromarketing is developed as the study of the complex coordination and control processes underpinning growth, evolution, and design of exchange systems. This approach provides a rich conceptual framework in which to unify the traditional themes of macromarketing and, potentially, to accelerate empirical research.

The Visions of Charles C. Slater: Social Consequences of Marketing

This article focuses on the accomplishments of a leader in marketing. During the past two decades the visions and contributions of Charles Slater broadened the conceptualization of marketing, applied that conceptualization to developing countries, formulated a new theory on market process, and built that theory into a class of simulation models applied around the world. His dedication, intellect, and humanism has brought macromarketing to the fore and left a rich legacy upon which an emerging discipline can build.

Structuring the Global Marketplace: The Impact of the United Nations Global Compact

During the past seven years, the United Nations Global Compact has become the largest voluntary corporate-citizenship initiative attempting to elevate and level the norms of corporate behavior in world markets. Its strategy of attracting volume of members versus commitment to performance of the Compacts 10 principles does not provide a base of innovators and early adopters necessary to gain respect from the vast majority of international companies. Thus, the Compact is unlikely to instill the norms embedded in its ten principles in the world market in any meaningful way to engender fairer and more efficient global markets.

Market Responsiveness to Societal Interests

The authors provide evidence that firms can enhance their own objectives by internalizing the objectives of most stakeholder groups. This suggests that society’s objectives, as defined by stakeholders to the firm, can be augmented by the self-interest motivation at the heart of a market system. Specifically examined was the impact of stakeholder responsiveness on innovativeness. The second objective of this study was to explore the impact of compliance-based versus strategic-based regulation approaches on firm innovation and overall corporate social responsibility (CSR). Findings suggest that regulatory responsiveness decreases innovation when firms expend resources only on compliance. Firms adopting strategic-based approaches, such as voluntary regulatory programs and collaborative strategies between the firm and government, however, are more innovative and demonstrate greater CSR. This study presents empirical tests that provide a strong first step in understanding how society’s goals can be further internalized into the engine of the market system. The implication is that both firms and regulators can find areas of win—win, with society as the beneficiary.

The Macromarketing Mosaic

After twenty-five years of Journal of Macromarketing publication and thirty years since the first Annual Macromarketing Theory Seminar, the question remains, can macromarketing make a difference? There are three forces that have limited macromarketing and need to be addressed if macromarketing is to have a meaningful future—the lack of independence from the captive power of managerial marketing, the expanding academic compartmentalization of knowledge, and the uncritical acceptance of the notion that market-driven consumption is sustainable in the future. As painful as it might be, macromarketing study needs to break the marginalizing bond with micromarketing, focus on the systems level, and reimpose a sustainable societal screen on the objective function of the field.

A Strategic Perspective on Regional Redevelopment

The race among regions for industrial development, especially of the high-tech variety, has intensified in recent years. Pressures to reindustrialize are engendering a variety of strategic responses at the national and subnational levels. The objective of this article is to place regional reindustrialization in the context of strategic marketing planning. Regional redevelopment is viewed as a macro-level market process that is amenable to strategic direction. The decision process for regional redevelopment is presented in terms of four strategic problem areas, each of which requires new macro techniques. Research needs are identified section highlights the policy issues.

Research Issues in Macro‐Marketing: A Blueprint for Progress

Develops an approach to the discipline of macro‐marketing as a means for discussion. Approaches the task of agenda by considering: scope and domain of macro‐marketing; classification of research issues at a general level; and major macro‐marketing issues facing different groups in various developed and underdeveloped countries. Concludes that the promise of macro‐marketing as an emergent field is a function of the research directions this field takes; suggests, further, that these directions are a product of social processes and therefore not a matter of prescription or infallible predictions.

Institutionalization of macromarketing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the genesis of the first Macro‐Marketing Seminar and to review the institutionalization of macromarketing which resulted from it.Design/methodology/approach – The paper briefly reviews the history of macromarketing, the changes in society and marketing thought, and the seminal research which led to the first Macro‐Marketing Seminar.Findings – Early macromarketing research was supplanted by a managerial marketing focus in mid‐twentieth century while at the same time society was awakening to the interconnections between human behavior and a broad range of societal problems. The early marketing theory seminars provided a template for the first Macro‐Marketing Seminar.Originality/value – The paper explains the resurgence of macromarketing which from that first pivotal Macro‐Marketing Seminar has blossomed into a multifaceted and institutionalized area of study.

The Legacy of Charles C. Slater

At 39 years of age, Dr. Charles C. Slater (Chuck) returned from industry to academic scholarship. In the next 15 years, until he finally succumbed to cancer in 1978, he accomplished what few scholars have in their lifetimes—the institutionalization of a branch of study. The Macromarketing Society, 30 years of the Journal of Macromarketing, and 34 years of the Macromarketing Conferences and their progeny all emerged as a result of his ability to excite other scholars to study and develop this field that he envisioned. He was a unique combination of visionary, enabler, and adventurer whose limitations even helped insure his legacy.