The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Table 1.1 Comparison matrix of research approaches to marketing exchange relationships

Research

tradition

Characteristics

Database and direct consumer

marketing

Services marketing Channel relationships Interaction and networks

Basic goals Enhance marketing efficiency
through better targeting of
marketing activities, especially
marketing communications –
channels and messages. Strong
managerial emphasis, integrated
marketing communications
(IMC) an important agenda.

Explain and understand services

marketing relationships and services

management. Managerial goal:

enhance the efficiency of managing

customer encounters and customer

relationships through managing the

perceived quality of the service offer

and relationship.

Theoretical goal; explain governance

structures and dyadic behaviour in

the channel context. Normative

goal: determine efficient relational

forms between channel members.

Three interrelated sets of goals: (i)
Understand and explain
interorganizational exchange behaviour
and relationship development at a
dyadic level in a network context: (ii)
understand how nets of relationships
between actors evolve, and (iii)
understand how markets function and
evolve from a network perspective.
Managerial goal: gain a more valid view
of reality through network theory.
View of
relationship

Organization-personal

customer relationships, often

distant and generally comprising

discrete transactions over time,

handled through customized

mass communication.

Personal customer relationships

attended by service personnel and

influenced through other marketing

activities. Earlier a strong focus on

the service encounter, later

expanded to include the life cycle of

relationships.

Interorganizational business

relationships characterized by

economic exchange and use of

power. Actors are dependent on

each other and behave reciprocally.

Relationships exist between different
types of actors: firms, government and
research agencies, individual actors.
Not only goods, but all kinds of
resources are exchanged through
relationships. Relationships are seen as
vehicles for accessing and controlling
resources, and creating new resources.
Questions asked How to provide value for the
customer, how to develop loyal
customers, how to adapt
marketing activities along the
customer’s life cycle, how to
retain customers?

How to provide value and perceived

quality for the customer, how to

manage service encounters, how to

create and manage customer

relationships?

What forms of governance are

efficient for what types of channel

relationships? How is the use of

power related to relationship

efficiency? How can the more

dependent party safeguard against

the dominant party? In what way is

the dyadic relationship contingent

on the larger channel context?

How are relationships created and

managed; how do nets of relationships

evolve, how can an actor manage

these relationships and create a

position in a net?

Disciplinary
background

No disciplinary background;

driven by information

technology, marketing

communication applications,

and consultants.

No clear disciplinary background

early phase a response to ‘traditional

marketing management’, later

consumer behaviour applications,

human resource perspective and

general management outlook.

Empirically – and theory-driven with

heavy managerial orientation.

Primarily theory-driven, attempts to

combine the economic and political

aspects (power, dependency) of

channels. The tradition relies on

transaction cost theory, relational

law, social exchange theory, political

economy, power and conflict in

organizational sociology.

Both empirically- and theory driven;
earlier influenced by channels
research, organizational buying
behaviour, resource dependency
theory, social exchange theory and
institutional economics; later by
institutional theory, dynamic industrial
economics, organizational sociology
and resource-based theory.
World view and
assumptions
about
relationships

Pragmatic – no explicit

assumptions; implicitly assumes

competitive markets of

customers; S-O-R view with

Primarily the management

perspective; dyadic interactive

relationship but customers often

seen as objects; i.e., the marketer is

Both parties can be active and

reciprocally interdependent; the

basic interest is in economic

exchange and its efficiency. The

Depending on the research goals, the

relationship perspective can be dyadic,

focal firm or network type. Any actor

can be active, actors are generally