Roger A. Layton

Marketing Systems—A Core Macromarketing Concept:

This article highlights the central role that the study of marketing systems could and should play in the discipline of macromarketing. Drawing from a wide-ranging literature, a new definition of marketing systems is shared. The study of a marketing system furthermore can be approached in one or more of at least four ways. Each approach discussed raises issues of modeling and measurement, of attributes, and of inputs and outputs, which increasingly often will provide insights into system design alternatives. Placing the concept of a marketing system at the center of macromarketing puts in context much if not all of the concepts, ideas, and research that have been part of macromarketing for the past thirty or more years and provides a bridge to the wealth of relevant studies now being undertaken in many related fields.

Macromarketing: Past, Present, and Possible Future:

In this article, we offer an overview of macromarketing from the mid–1960s to the present. Based on this overview, describe examples of the system elements that have been of interest in researching marketing systems (including those that relate to the environment and the components, attributes, and outcomes of marketing systems). Next, we consider where the field stands today and discuss twelve challenges in macromarketing that compose a possible scenario for future research. Finally, we note the scenarios links to intellectual and normative traditions in the field, its potential relevance for macromarketing scholarship, and its limitations.

On Economic Growth, Marketing Systems, and the Quality of Life

In addition to favorable institutions and knowledge accumulation, there is a third significant set of factors that could and should be taken into the analysis of economic growth. Where there is specialization there must also be trade, and, overtime, where there is trade there will also emerge the specialized roles and market structures needed to handle trade efficiently. These specialized roles and market structures, identified as marketing systems, together with institutions and technology constitute the three essential sets of factors needed for growth to occur. While institutional change tends to be long term, and technological change is often discontinuous and medium term, marketing system changes leading to improvements in either or both of effectiveness and efficiency in trade have a much more immediate impact on the well-being of the community. If the marketing systems that play such a central role are poorly adapted to the environments in which they operate, or lack in health, resilience or responsiveness, for structural or functional reasons, then growth and ultimately the quality of life will be directly affected. An understanding of marketing systems, their emergence, and their role in influencing economic growth is a necessary first step toward the ‘‘constructive engagement’’ of marketing with society envisaged by Shultz.

Formation, Growth, and Adaptive Change in Marketing Systems

The article outlines an integrated theoretical framework identifying the causal processes underlying formation, growth, and adaptive change in marketing systems. Beginning with the co-evolution of behaviors, beliefs, and social practices that initiate innovative change in marketing systems, it integrates three theoretical frameworks drawn from analytical sociology, organization and social movement theory, and from macromarketing to show how and why economic exchange in and between human communities leads to formation, growth, and adaptive change in marketing systems. The theory of social mechanisms identifies the means whereby actions taken by individuals and entities participating in a marketing system will regularly produce over time the collective outcomes that characterize a marketing system. The theory of strategic action fields explains how these actions, engendered by competition between participants for material and status rewards in the social action field associated with a marketing system, lead to internal and external change in a marketing system. The theory of marketing systems identifies the tangible and intangible elements of structure and function in marketing systems that emerge from the interaction of social mechanisms and action fields over time and that are found in every human community. As marketing systems form, grow, and change they become part of the immediate environment in turn influencing the actions of individuals, groups and entities, as well as adjacent marketing systems, shaping on-going co-evolution, the operation of social mechanisms, and the strategic choices made by actors in action fields. The Mechanism, Action, Structure (MAS) framework of theory is dynamic, explores causation, links micro choices and macro structures, focusses on processes rather than variables, and links macromarketing with cognate social sciences in an understanding of economic exchange in human communities.

Towards a theory of marketing systems

Purpose – As specialisation takes root in human communities, the economics of scale and of diversity come into play. Scale leads to product markets, specialised firms, channels, and to industries. Diversity generates peasant markets, shopping malls, and business eco‐systems. These outcomes are all examples of marketing systems, and are typical of the patterns that emerge, grow, adapt and evolve in complex transaction flows. Marketing systems are multi‐level, path dependent, dynamic systems, embedded within a social matrix, and interacting with institutional and knowledge environments. The purpose of this paper is to outline a number of propositions that might serve as a basis for a theory of marketing systems.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on historical research into the evolution of exchange and on examples of markets and exchange practices from marketing, anthropology, sociology, and economics. It utilises results from complex adaptive systems theory, from the networks and markets literat...

The Search for a Dominant Logic A Macromarketing Perspective

This paper suggests an extension to the Vargo and Lusch (2004) proposal where the fundamental unit of analysis is not the exchange itself but a marketing system within which the service dominant exchange is embedded. The relevant marketing system could range from a micro-system in which the reciprocal creation of value through a single transaction between a buyer and seller is considered, to purposeful, structured, or emergent systems (such as supply chains, business ecosystems, or shopping malls), to the aggregate marketing system. Five criteria are suggested that should be met by any proposed dominant logic or world view. The system-embedded service-dominant (SESD) logic meets all five criteria and may reverse the growing fragmentation occurring in both micro- and macromarketing. It redefines the relationship between micro- and macromarketing and in focusing attention on a meso level of analysis it opens up new horizons for research. In a multidisciplinary setting it highlights what is intrinsic to marketing—exchange within a marketing systems framework.

Managing both Outcome and Process Quality is Critical to Quality of Hotel Service

Using room service for investigation, this empirical study demonstrates that, additional to the five quality dimensions identified in the original SERVQUAL study, core outcome components constitute a distinct quality dimension crucial for assessment of overall service quality. Effective quality management in the service sector hinges on the management of both outcome and process elements. The results reveal that the relative importance of the individual quality dimension to total service quality should vary from service to service. The findings also support that performance scores outperform gap scores in terms of the reliable measurement of service quality.

Trade Flows in Macromarketing Systems Part I A Macromodel of Trade Flows

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a simple model of the major transactional flows occurring in an economy in which consumers and producers deal with each other, both directly and indirectly, through a complex set of distribution channel options. The first step in the devel opment of the model requires estimates of an aggregated trade flow matrix for the Australian economy in 1968-69 similar to the matrix prepared by Cox, Goodman, and Fichandler for the U.S. for 1947. Using this trade flow matrix and the corresponding input-output matrix, its use is illustrated by estimating the effect on channel flows of an increase in Australias mineral exports. The model highlights weaknesses in the data gathered by official statisticians relating to the distributive sector and suggests a conceptual framework that may provide a basis for more detailed collections and their subsequent analyses.

Trade Flows in Macromarketing Systems: Part II Transforming Input-Output Tables into Trade Flow Tables

This paper explains steps in transforming (X) values in an input-output table into (Z) values of a trade flow table by specifying elements of Z as a linear function of X. Estimates of flow coeffi cients for Australia 1968-69 are provided by comparing input-output tables with trade flow tables for that year.

Systems-thinking social marketing: conceptual extensions and empirical investigations

ABSTRACT Systems thinking dominated the 2015 World Social Marketing conference with the premise that a more holistic approach takes into account all the issues at play for effective change. Augmenting the broadening social marketing literature, we contend that systems-thinking social marketing enhances the field’s conventional behavioural change with concepts of scale, causation, and iterative co-creating change processes for complex health and environmental problems. The results of our empirical Sea for Society study, a sustainable European marine ecosystem examination of what the barriers to change are and how they are interrelated, find systems-thinking social marketing offers the potential to strategically and critically reinforce, not replace, behavioural change campaigns. With systems-thinking social marketing, a coherent theory of change becomes a possibility. Orchestrating social change may become a reality.