Relationship Marketing Management

Abstract

‘History of Marketing Thought: An Update’ (Sheth & Gardner, 1982) was the last published work documenting the evolution of the various schools of marketing in context of history of marketing thought. This article provides an account of the emergence of the ‘newest’ mainstream school of thought in marketing; that is, Relationship Marketing. In pursuit of this update we became increasingly convinced that Relationship Marketing is ‘as much about management as it is about marketing.’ Indeed, the propeller of the Relationship Marketing school of thought is the recognition by academicians and practitioners alike of the need for some measure of ‘customer,’ and ‘partner,’ relationship management in the marketing system. Therefore, we propose a new name for the newest school of thought in marketing, ‘Relationship Marketing Management.’ We conclude that while Relationship Marketing Management will not rise to the status of a discipline, it will replace traditional Marketing Management as the mainstream school of marketing thought.

Key Words:

• Relationship marketing
• relationship management
• relationship marketing management
• history of marketing thought