Historical research in marketing theory and practice: a review essay

Abstract

This paper reviews 30 years of interdisciplinary scholarship that deals with marketing history or the history of marketing thought. We have ranged across the humanities and social sciences to review the very best scholarship that these domains have produced which speaks to issues likely to concern the readers of the Journal of Marketing Management (JMM). These domains include: the history of marketing management, history of market research, history of market segmentation, product management history, retailing and channels history, promotion history, advertising history, the history of marketing thought, and marketing and the management of subjectivity, among others. Given obvious page limitations we have nevertheless tried to appeal to the paradigmatic span of the readers of the JMM. With this in mind, we have critically reviewed material that will be of interest to managerially oriented academics, as well as those who subscribe to consumer culture theoretics and critical marketing studies.

Keywords:

• marketing history
• history of marketing thought
• managerial perspectives
• consumer culture theoretics
• critical marketing studies

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Erratum

Notes

¹ Cochoy continues this provocation in other places. In a 2008 paper focusing on the place of children in the retail environment, he even uses the metaphor of ‘penning’ children thus continuing the bovine theme (e.g. Cochoy, 2008, p. 149).

² Interested readers should examine the recent (2008) special issue of Business History Review that focused on salesmanship. It contains excellent studies from Gordon, Harris, Scott, Rossfeld, French and Propp among others. But space limitations prevent us reviewing these in the detail they warrant here.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Tadajewski

Mark Tadajewski is Professor of Marketing at Durham University. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Marketing Management, an Associate Editor of the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, the co-editor of the Routledge Studies in Critical Marketing monograph series, co-editor of the Routledge Studies in the History of Marketing, and author of numerous books and many articles. He also serves on the editorial and policy boards of the Journal of Macromarketing, the editorial board of Marketing Theory, the Board of Directors of the Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing (CHARM), and on the Academy of Marketing Research Committee.

D.G. Brian Jones

Brian Jones is the founding Editor of the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing. He also serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Marketing Management, Marketing Theory, and European Business Review. His research focuses on the history of marketing ideas and has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Macromarketing, Marketing Theory, Journal of International Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Canadian Journal of Administrative Science, Accounting History, European Business Review, Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, and other publications. He is the author of (2012) Pioneers in Marketing, and co-editor, with Mark Tadajewski, of the (2008) three-volume set of readings titled The History of Marketing Thought.