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INTRODUCTION

A relatively new marketing concept have been initiate and examine by the authors, marketing doctrine, because its
simple, experience-based principles which provide consistent guidance to marketers across the firm. As firms grow
and diversify, they begin to hire and/or acquire marketers with very different marketing training, experiences, and
means for making marketing decisions. Consequently, firms are increasingly dealing with a marketing inconsistency
problem.
Previous studied has found two general perspectives for developing a common approach to decision making. Firstly,
firms may initiate standard operating procedure (SOP) which useful in performing well-structured tasks. But its flexibility
is limited and can be apply to strategic marketing task such as brand positioning, channel design and et (Rely on
mechanistic approaches that direct decision making by providing standard operating procedures
(Homburg and First 2005). Secondly, firms may train employees with shared value and norms. It is more flexible but
limited guidance (Rely on organic approaches that inculcate employees with shared values and norms (e.g
teamwork, information exchange) to guide decision making (Homburg and First 2005)
In this research, the authors proposed third perspective which is marketing doctrine. It is more consistent and flexible in
decision making. It can be defined as a firms unique principles, distilled from its experiences, that provide firm-wide
guidance on market-facing choices.
Three main reasons for using principles- based approach;
a. Rules of thumb : It simplifies decision making by launching products promptly and obtain feedback from actual users;
b. It helps to provides guidance and details execution to ensure consistency and allow flexibility; and
c. It is quite easy to remember and communicate to others.

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Table 1: Four contributions to the literature


Identify a formal definition of the
doctrine concept from previous
research and compare with related
concept
such
as
market
orientation, values and routines to
clarify its domain.
Provide guidance for firms to
develop
their
own
marketing
doctrine by addressing three key
development considerations: how
to identify principles that comprise
doctrine, how to articulate doctrine
and how to sustain doctrine.

Investigate the moderating effects


of unpredictable environments on
the marketing doctrine useperformance relationship. The
effect are not uniform across
contexts. They are difference and
more valuable in some contexts.
Develop a conceptual model that
considers
antecedents
and
consequences
of
marketing
doctrine. Identified two types of
diversification
and
decentralizations as antecedents.

Table 2: Marketing Doctrine Construct

Firms Unique
Principles

Principles provide simple guidance while allowing flexibility to identify


specific solutions for a particular product or market.
The importance of developing specific principles is because it could
reflect firms strategy and context.
Superior performance comes from the fit between firm strategy and
marketing activities. Different strategy require different marketing
configurations.

Distilled from
Firms
Experiences

Learning from a firm's experiences is valuable because it exploits info


about the firms unique context.
Knowledge grounded in a firms history represent the share knowledge
of organizational members which make it unique and difficult to imitate.

Firm-Wide
Guidance

Firms Market
Facing Choices

Marketing doctrine tends to address problems that are commercially


oriented. Thus, it should provide firm wide guidance for marketing
decision making.
Firms must focus on its most critical marketing choices rather than be
comprehensive for competing in firms markets.
The principle may not cover all aspects but instead focus on the
essential.

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Table 3: Marketing Doctrine and Related Constructs


Market Orientation

A firm-wide generation, dissemination and responsiveness to market intelligence.


To become customer and competitor focused.

It shared values among employees within an organization that provide them with
norms for conduct.
It generalized beliefs about appropriate modes of conduct within organization

Organizational Culture & Values

Organizational
Culture
& Values

Focus on people conduct and affect all


employees

Affects those directly or indirectly


responsible for marketing decisions

Have a distal and indirect effect on


the performance of marketing tasks

Direct effect on the performance of


marketing tasks

General Modes of Conduct

Reflects guidance primarily from firm


experiences

Routines

Routines

Marketing Doctrine

Marketing Doctrine

Detailed sequences of behavior for


simple, highly structured problem

Provide guidance for more complex and


unstructured marketing task

Require managers to recognize a


situation and apply ready to use
solutions

It requires judgment in application

Require highly standardized process


for development

Involved more for the development of


marketing doctrine

Table 4: Three Key Development for Developing Marketing Doctrine


Identifying
Principles in
Marketing Doctrine
Articulating
Marketing Doctrine

Sustaining
Marketing Doctrine

A firm should leverage from their experiences such as observation reflection, testing
and eventually, generalization. These form of experiences should be translated into
meaningful principles for business references.

Marketing doctrine must be able to reflect simplicity or be easily understood


A firm should benefit more from written (explicit) doctrine because written
information is easier to understand and communication and is less prone to distortion
(Nonaka and Von Krogh 2009)

The relevance of the marketing doctrine should be sustained over time. The doctrine
in use should be able to reflect successes failures new experience, technology change
and shifts in capabilities

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Table 5: Consequences of Marketing Doctrine Use

CONCLUSIO
N

Marketing
Program
Creativity

Refer to which a firm generate novel approaches to market a product


(Andrew and Smith 1996)
Importance of marketing doctrine creativity
The greater the marketing doctrine use in a firm, the greater the firms
marketing program creativity

Marketing
Impulsivity

The degree to which a firm pursues initiatives with little foresight (Dickman
1990)
The greater the marketing doctrine use in a firm, the lower the firms
marketing
impulsivity

Perceived
Marketing
Value

The extent to which marketing is regarded as contributing to a success of


the firm (Moorman and Rust 1999)
The greater the marketing doctrine use in a firm the greater the perceived
value of marketing within the firm

Firm
performance

The firms revenue and profitability relative to that of competitors (Moorman


and Rust 1999)
Affect a firms performance both indirectly and directly
The greater the marketing doctrine use in the firm, the better the firms
performance

The study concludes that marketing doctrine is a firm unique principles distilled
from its experiences which provides a firm wide guidance on market facing
choices and also provide a firm wide common approach to decision making.
Marketing doctrine also helps high level guidance for decision makers in the
firms and assists to create principles to guide and measure the performance of
the firms marketing activities as well.

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