Tài liệu A history of schools of marketing thought pptx

LINK DOWNLOAD MIỄN PHÍ TÀI LIỆU "Tài liệu A history of schools of marketing thought pptx": http://123doc.vn/document/1046057-tai-lieu-a-history-of-schools-of-marketing-thought-pptx.htm

Neoclassical schools (Bartels, 1988), as well as the German Historical and
American Institutional schools (Jones and Monieson, 1990). In addition to eco-
nomics as a parent discipline, management also developed as a sister discipline in
the early 20th century. Practical innovations, such as interchangeable parts and
assembly lines were combined with innovative thinking in more efficient
management practices. Pioneered by Taylor (1903, 1911) and Gilbreth (1911),
‘Scientific Management’ studied worker tasks and costs and time and motion, to
produce efficiencies on the factory floor. Dramatic improvements in the factory
system resulted in mass production, creating the necessity for understanding mass
distribution to service mass consumption.
In the second period, the traditional approaches to understanding marketing
thought developed. At the turn of the 20th century business was bustling in
the United States. There was increasing migration to cities, the emergence of
national brands and chain stores, rural free mail and package delivery, and grow-
ing newspaper and magazine advertising. The completion of the transcontinental
railroad generated ever-increasing trunk lines to even small cities, larger cities
developed mass transit, and growing numbers of automobiles and trucks travelled
on ever-expanding roadways. These developments connected rural farmers,
through agents and brokers, with urban consumers; and connected manu-
facturers with wholesalers, and wholesalers with retailers, and not just small
specialty stores, but the new mammoth department stores and national mail order
houses, to ultimately reach household consumers. The time was ripe for thinking
about improvements in market distribution. As academic schools of business
arose at the end of the 19th century, the first marketing courses in American
universities were taught in 1902 (Bartels, 1988). To organize marketing’s distinct
subject matter, pioneer scholars in the newly emerging discipline developed the
first three approaches to the scientific study of marketing phenomena: (1) cata-
loging functions; (2) classifying commodities; and (3) categorizing institutions.
Now known collectively as the traditional approaches to the study of marketing
(Bartels, 1988), they were used to argue against the popular complaint ‘of high
price spreads between farmers and consumers’ and the widely held opinion of
‘high costs, waste and inefficiencies in marketing’. Marketing functions demon-
strated that the distribution and exchange activities performed by specialized
marketing institutions (trading firms) in moving agricultural and manufacturing
commodities from sources of supply to places of demand were socially useful and
economically valuable (Jones and Shaw, 2002).
Period three, approximately between 1955 and 1975, is called a Paradigm Shift
(following the phrase used by Wilkie and Moore, 2003). The paradigm shift from
traditional approaches to modern schools of marketing thought resulted from
several developments. It was influenced by military advances in mathematical
modeling, such as linear programming, during the Second World War. Following
the war, the shift in capacity from military production to consumer goods spurred
economic growth in the United States creating supply surpluses and the con-
comitant necessity for demand generation activities by business firms. The para-
digm shift was also affected by the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Foundation
marketing theory 5(3)
articles
242
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 242
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
reports of 1959 calling for greater relevance in business education and providing
foundation funding to produce significant curriculum changes. The most impor-
tant cause of the paradigm shift in academic thought, however, was the thinking
of the dominant scholar of his time – Wroe Alderson. Based on his numerous
articles and presentations, marketing theory seminars, newsletters, and two semi-
nal books (1957, 1965), the paradigm shift resulted in or impacted most modern
schools of thought; including: marketing management; marketing systems; con-
sumer behaviour; macromarketing; and exchange.
The fourth period, from about 1975 to 2000, is named the Paradigm Broaden-
ing. External forces were only involved in consumer behavior, where researchers
from outside the field (particularly psychology) entered the marketing discipline
(Sheth, 1992). In other schools, the major impetus for broadening the paradigm
was again a dominant scholar. In this case the prodigious thinking of Philip Kotler
(1972, 1975) and various co-authors (Kotler and Levy, 1969; Kotler and Zaltman,
1971; Levy and Zaltman, 1975). This movement resulted in a bifurcation in three
schools: marketing management, exchange, and consumer behavior. The para-
digm broadening expanded the boundaries of marketing thought from its con-
ventional focus on business activities to a broader perspective embracing all forms
of human activity related to any generic or social exchange.
The various schools of thought, pioneering scholars, questions addressed, level
or focus of the school, and key concepts are summarized in Table 1.
Marketing functions school
Marketing functions was the first of the traditional schools to emerge in the
embryonic marketing discipline. It addressed the question: what is the work of
marketing? The functional approach was described by Converse (1945) as the
most significant theoretical development of early marketing thought; indeed he
compared it with the discovery of atomic theory because it sought to identify and
catalogue the fundamental elements of the field. Few concepts in the marketing
literature have so closely followed such a clearly delineated life cycle. The func-
tional approach to understanding marketing began its introduction during the
1910s, underwent rapid growth in the 1920s, entered early maturity in the 1940s,
peaked in the 1950s, began declining in the 1960s, and was discarded by the 1970s
(roughly paralleling Hunt and Goolsby’s 1988 review).
In what historians (Bartels, 1988; Sheth et al., 1988) generally regard as the
critical work in the emerging academic discipline of marketing, ‘Some Problems
in Market Distribution’, Arch Shaw (1912: 173) identified five functions of
middlemen: ‘(1) Sharing the risk, (2) Transporting the goods, (3) Financing the
operations, (4) Selling the goods, and (5) Assembling, sorting, and reshipping’. In
a retrospective letter, Shaw (1950) described how he developed these ideas in 1910
as a student at the Harvard Business School; while studying the historical contri-
bution of merchants to the economy, he searched ‘for some simple concept by
means of which these functions would fall naturally into definite classifications
A history of schools of marketing thought
Eric H. Shaw and D.G. Brian Jones
243
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 243
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
marketing theory 5(3)
articles
244
Table 1
Schools of marketing thought
Selected Level or focus
School marketing pioneers Question(s) addressed of analysis Key concepts and theories
Marketing Shaw 1912, Weld 1917, What activities Macro: Value added by marketing activities
functions Cherington 1920, Clark (i.e. functions) • Marketing
1922, Converse 1922, comprise marketing? Middlemen
Maynard et al. 1927
Marketing Shaw 1916, Cherington How are different Macro: Classification of goods:
commodities 1920, Copeland 1924, types of goods • Trade flows • Industrial and consumer
Breyer 1931 (i.e., commodities) • Types of goods • Convenience, shopping and specialty
classified and related • Products and services
to different types of • Search and experience
marketing functions?
Marketing Weld 1916, Nystrom Who performs Macro: Channels of distribution:
institutions 1915, Clark 1922, marketing functions • Retailers • Market gaps and flows
Maynard et al. 1927 on commodities? • Wholesalers • Parallel systems
Breyer 1934, • Middlemen • Depots
Mallen 1967, Stern 1969, • Channels of • Transactions and transvections
Bucklin 1970 distribution • Sorts and transformations
• Postponement and speculation
• Conflict and cooperation
• Power and dependence
Marketing Alderson 1956, 1965, How should managers Micro: • Marketing mix
management Howard 1956, Kelley and market goods to • Business firm as • Customer orientation
Lazer 1958, McCarthy customers (clients, seller/supplier • Segmentation, targeting and
1960, Kotler 1967 patrons, patients)? • Any individual or positioning
organization as
supplier
Marketing Alderson 1956, 1965, What is a marketing Micro: • Interrelationships between
systems Boddewyn 1969, system? Why does it • Firms and parts and whole
Fisk 1967, Dixon 1967 exist? How do households • Unity of thought
marketing systems • Marketing systems
work? Who performs Macro: • Micro and macro marketing
marketing work? • Channels of • Societal Impact
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 244
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
A history of schools of marketing thought
Eric H. Shaw and D.G. Brian Jones
245
Where and when is it distribution
performed? • Aggregate
marketing systems
Consumer Dichter 1947, Katona Why do customers buy? Micro: • Subconscious motivation
behavior 1953, Engel et al. 1968, How do people think, • Business buying • Rational & emotional motives
Kassarjian and Robertson feel, act? • Consumer buying • Needs and wants
1968, Howard and Sheth How can customers/ • Individual or • Learning
1969, Holloway et al. 1971, people be persuaded? household • Personality
Cohen 1972 consumption • Attitude formation and change
• Hierarchy of effects
• Information processing
• Symbolism and signs
• Opinion leadership
• Social class
• Culture and sub-cultures
Macro- Alderson 1965, Fisk 1967, How do marketing Macro: • Standard of living
marketing Dixon 1967, Hunt 1976, systems impact society • Industries • Quality of life
Bartels and Jenkins 1977 and society impact • Channels of • Marketing systems
marketing systems? Distribution • Aggregate marketing
• Consumer performance
Movement
• Public Policy
• Economic
Development
Exchange Alderson 1965, Kotler What are the forms Macro: • Strategic and routine transactions
1972, Bagozzi 1975, 1978, of exchange? • Aggregations of • Social, economic and market
1979, Shaw and Dixon How does market buyers and sellers exchange
1980, Houston and exchange differ from in channels • Barter and market transactions
Gassenheimer 1987, other exchanges? Micro: • Generic exchange
Wilkie and Moore 2003 Who are the parties to • Firms and
exchange? households
Why do they engage • Any two parties
in exchange? or persons
Marketing Hotchkiss 1938, Bartels When did marketing Macro: • History of marketing practice
history 1962, 1976, 1988, practices, ideas, • Thought and • History of marketing thought
Hollander 1960, 1983, theories, schools of practice
Shapiro and Doody 1968, thought emerge Micro:
Savitt 1980 and evolve? • Thought and practice
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 245
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
and their interdependence disclosed. The objective was to give order and usability
to the knowledge of market distribution accumulated as of that time’.
L.D.H. Weld recognized that functions are ‘universal’, often shifting backward
and forward in the channel of distribution: ‘They are not always performed by
middlemen, but often to a greater extent by producers themselves, [and] it should
be noted that the final consumer performs part of the marketing functions’ (1917:
306). Very similar to Shaw’s list, Weld’s listing includes seven functions: (1) risk
bearing, (2) transportation, (3) financing, (4) selling, (5) assembling, (6) re-
arrangement (sorting, grading, breaking bulk), and (7) storage. Although arranged
and combined somewhat differently, the only new function added is storage.
Although no two authors’ lists looked precisely the same, subsequent writers,
such as Cherington (1920) with seven functions, Duncan (1920) with eight,
Vanderblue (1921) with 10, Ivey (1921) with seven, Converse (1921) with nine,
and Clark (1922) with seven functions, also entered the competition for the best
list of functions. Each author added some, dropped others, aggregated several
functions into one or disaggregated one function into several others. Clark (1922)
ultimately reduced the number to as few as three (with sub-functions): exchange
(buying and selling); physical distribution (storage and transportation); and
facilitating functions (financing, risk taking, standardization). In the most com-
prehensive review of the literature to that date, Ryan (1935) expanded the list to
more than 120 functions grouped into 16 functional categories. In one historical
analysis of the functional approach, Faria (1983) opined that the most useful
synthesis and most widely accepted list of marketing functions to 1940 was devel-
oped by Maynard et al. in 1927, but Faria offered no evidence in support of his
opinion. Maynard et al. (1927) essentially extended Clark’s (1922) list of seven
functions to eight by adding marketing information. There does not appear to be
much basis to argue one author’s list of functions versus another list, other than
to state the most parsimonious is that of Clark (1922) and the most detailed that
of Ryan (1935).
That different writers could produce such varying numbers of functions
presents an obvious problem with the concept. By 1948, the American Marketing
Association Committee on Definitions expressed their dissatisfaction:
It is probably unfortunate that this term [marketing function] was ever developed. Under it
students have sought to squeeze a heterogeneous and non-consistent group of activities . . .
Such functions as assembling, storage, and transporting, are broad general economic functions,
while selling and buying are essentially individual in character. All these discrete groups we
attempt to crowd into one class and label marketing functions. (cited in McGarry, 1950: 264)
Attempting to revive the functional approach, McGarry (1950) reconsidered the
concept based on the purpose of marketing activity, which he regarded as creat-
ing exchanges. McGarry (1950: 269) believed he had arrived at six functions
constituting the sine qua non of marketing:
• Contractual – searching out of buyers and sellers;
• Merchandising – fitting goods to market requirements;
• Pricing – the selection of a price;
marketing theory 5(3)
articles
246
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 246
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
• Propaganda – the conditioning of the buyers or of the sellers to a favorable
attitude;
• Physical Distribution – the transporting and storing of the goods;
• Termination – the consummation of the marketing process.
Ironically, in attempting to breathe new life into functions, Hunt and Goolsby
astutely observed that McGarry was sowing the ‘seeds of its demise’. In their
exhaustive search of the literature, they noted that McGarry’s list of functions was
much closer to the work of marketing managers than older listings of functions,
‘McGarry was presaging the rise of the managerial approach to the study of
marketing and the demise of the functional approach’ (1988: 40). Although there
were no new conceptual developments after McGarry, functions could still be
found in the revised editions of earlier marketing principles texts (such as
Beckman and a variety of his co-authors through nine editions from 1927 to
1973). As the principles’ texts died out, so did the functional approach to market-
ing thought. The functions or work of marketing, however, later reemerged as
channel ‘flows’ in the institutional school, and as managerial tasks in the market-
ing management school.
Commodities school
The commodity school focuses on the distinctive characteristics of goods (i.e.
products and services) and primarily addresses the question: how are different
classes of goods marketed? Most work in commodities involves categories of
goods: ‘Classification schemes have always been at the heart of the commodity
approach because they are of critical importance in establishing the differences
among various types of commodities’ (Zinn and Johnson, 1990: 346). Although
he did not use the terms industrial and consumer commodities, Cherington
(1920: 21–2) discussed several categories of goods, including raw materials and
component parts used in manufacturing and those goods that ‘disappear from
commerce to go into individual consumption or into household use’. Duncan
(1920) distinguished between agricultural and manufactured commodities,
noting that the analysis of commodities could be applied to any good, ‘whether a
material thing or service’, anticipating issues of products compared to services
(e.g. Judd, 1969; Lovelock, 1981; Rathmell, 1966; Shostack, 1977; Vargo and
Lusch, 2004).
In Breyer’s (1931) book, Commodity Marketing, each chapter followed a com-
mon method in describing the marketing of an individual product or service from
original producers, through intermediaries, to final users, including such com-
modities as cotton, cement, coal, petroleum, iron, steel, automobiles, electricity
and telephone services. Similarly, in Vaile et al.’s (1952) book, Marketing in the
American Economy, there was also discussion of how some individual goods are
marketed, including used cars and airplanes. In contrast to tracing the movement
of individual commodities, Alexander (1951: 4) illustrated the aggregate flow of
A history of schools of marketing thought
Eric H. Shaw and D.G. Brian Jones
247
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 247
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
goods in the United States for 1939, from manufacturing, through manufacturer’s
sales branches, wholesalers and retailers, to industrial and household consumers.
In an even more extensive study, Cox et al. (1965) explored the aggregate flow of
goods in the United States for 1947, from agriculture, mining, fisheries, and other
extractive industries, through wholesalers and other intermediate trade, to manu-
facturing and construction, to wholesaling and retailing, including imports,
public utilities, transportation, and services to final users – including exports,
government, businesses and households. Most work in the commodity school of
thought involved neither individual commodities nor aggregate commodity
flows, but rather was focused on the classification of goods.
The most influential classifier of commodities was Copeland (1924). First, he
made a clear distinction between industrial and consumer goods based upon
who bought the commodity and the use for which it was intended. Copeland
recognized the demand for industrial goods was derived from the demand for
consumer goods, a distinction largely taken for granted by subsequent scholars.
Copeland identified five categories of industrial goods, and later services were
added as a sixth category (McCarthy, 1960). Of the six categories, two involve
capital goods, two are used in production, and two are expense items. Capital
goods are generally depreciable and include the two most expensive categories:
(1) installations; long-term capital items such as buildings and land; and
(2) accessory equipment; shorter duration capital items such as trucks and com-
puters. Other goods are used in the production process: (3) raw materials, such as
silica, lead oxide, and potash heated to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit to produce glass;
and (4) component parts, for example rubber tires, metal and plastic body parts,
leather seats, and glass windows are assembled to produce an automobile. Expense
items include categories to maintain and support the business: (5) supplies for
maintenance, repair, and operating the business; and (6) services to support
business operations (for example, accounting or custodial services). Copeland’s
industrial goods classification – with the addition of services – has barely changed
over the decades of the 20th century (Perreault and McCarthy, 1996). Although
the concepts remain the same, the term industrial goods is sometimes replaced
with business goods or its shorthand expression – B2B (business to business
marketing).
It is in the area of consumer goods classification, however, that the most exten-
sive developments in the commodities school occurred. Most work on consumer
goods classification is built on Copeland’s original three categories: convenience,
shopping, and specialty goods. Copeland (1924) credited Charles Parlin with
suggesting two of the three categories. Gardner cited Parlin’s (1912) categories as
‘(1) convenience goods, those articles of daily purchase required for immediate
use, (2) shopping goods, those more important purchases that require compari-
son as to qualities and price, and (3) emergency goods those necessary to meet an
unexpected occurrence’ (1945: 275). Copeland subsumed Parlin’s emergency
goods in the convenience category.
In another work, not cited by Copeland, Parlin (1915: 298) anticipated
specialty goods as well, noting those goods for which people ‘may go some dis-
marketing theory 5(3)
articles
248
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 248
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
tance out of their way to find a desired brand’. Also anticipated by one of
Copeland’s colleagues at Harvard, Arch W. Shaw mentioned convenience and
specialty goods. With the former, ‘the consumer puts convenience first, either
because the amount of money involved is small and values are standardized or
because the nature of the product puts a premium on frequent small purchases
close at home’ (1916: 283). In the latter, ‘a specialty [good] is the result of closer
adaptation of a product to the needs . . . of the consumer’ (1916: 125). Thus,
Copeland’s three categories of goods were in the air, so to speak, at the time he
began organizing them into a coherent classification system.
Copeland clearly defined the three categories. Convenience goods are ‘those
customarily purchased at easily accessible stores’. Shopping goods include ‘those
for which a consumer wishes to compare prices, quality, and style at the time of
purchase’. With specialty goods, however, consumers neither traveled to a con-
venient store location nor made comparisons while shopping. He thought this
category so different he called it specialty goods, ‘those which have some [special]
attraction for the consumer, other than price, which induces him to put forth
special effort to visit the store . . . and make the purchase without shopping’ (1924:
14).
Although there were a number of rationales for the three categories of con-
sumer goods, it was the specialty goods category that perked the most interest and
raised the most questions among subsequent authors.
Holton (1958) conceptualized the distinction between the categories based on
the benefits resulting from price and quality comparisons relative to searching
costs. With convenience goods the benefits are small and with shopping goods the
benefits are large compared to the cost of search. Specialty goods overlapped the
other categories, and the distinction Holton made is that such goods had a small
demand thereby requiring a buyer’s special effort to find the relatively few outlets
carrying them. Luck (1959: 64) rejoined Holton’s disparagement of specialty
goods by arguing ‘the willingness of consumers to make special purchasing efforts
is explanatory, consumer oriented, and useful’.
Although he used shopping and convenience goods categories, Aspinwall
(1958b) took a very different approach to Copeland’s classification than prior or
subsequent authors. Using a continuous color scheme, where red stands for con-
venience goods, yellow for shopping goods and shades of orange for goods in
between, he related five characteristics of goods to length of channel and type of
promotion required based on summing the values on each characteristic.
Convenience goods have a high (1) replacement rate, and are low on (2) gross
margin, (3) amount of product adjustment or service, (4) time of consumption,
and (5) search time. Based on these characteristics, such goods require long
channels and broadcast advertising. Shopping goods have a low replacement rate,
and are high on the other four characteristics. These goods require short channels
and personal selling. The colors are meant to blend, and shades of orange goods
could occur anywhere in between the red and yellow. Orange was more moderate
in all characteristics, requiring mid-length channels and some broadcast promo-
tion. The specialty category was not included in Aspinwall’s classification.
A history of schools of marketing thought
Eric H. Shaw and D.G. Brian Jones
249
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 249
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Several rationales appeared in the literature justifying Copeland’s three con-
sumer goods categories. Bucklin (1963), using a decision-making approach, asked
the question: prior to purchase, does the consumer have a mental preference map?
If the answer is no, then price and quality comparisons are required, indicating a
shopping good. If yes, a sub-question must be asked; will the buyer accept substi-
tutes? If yes, then the buyer knows what she wants, any close substitute will work,
and it is a convenience good. If no, the buyer knows what she wants, will not
accept alternatives and extra search effort is required – a specialty good. Kaish
(1967: 31) used the theory of cognitive dissonance to explain a buyer’s willingness
to put forth physical or mental energy. While convenience goods are not particu-
larly important to the buyer, any brand will do, no mental cognitive dissonance,
and minimal physical effort is required, shopping goods are important and
‘arouse high levels of pre-purchase mental anxiety about the possible inappropri-
ateness of the purchase [although anxiety is high] . . . it is reducible by shopping
behavior’. Specialty goods are important and also have high pre-purchase anxiety
but it is ‘not readily reducible’ by comparison shopping; their importance requires
physical search to locate the special good and reduce the mental anxiety.
Based on product similarity and buyer risk, Bucklin (1976) subdivided shop-
ping goods into two types: low-intensity and high-intensity shopping goods
(similar to Krugman’s (1965) concept of low-involvement/high-involvement
goods). Following a similar path, but building on Kaish’s work, Holbrook and
Howard (1977) developed a two-dimensional map with physical effort on one axis
and mental effort on the other. Based on the four quadrants, they also argued for
including a fourth category of goods, termed preference goods (roughly similar to
Krugman’s low-involvement or Bucklin’s low-intensity shopping goods), requir-
ing some shopping effort, moderate risk and high brand preference.
Building on these conceptual developments, Enis and Roering (1980) com-
bined two basic buyer considerations – physical effort and mental risk – with the
marketer’s concern for product differentiation and marketing mix differentiation
(although it could be argued the product is just one element of the marketing
mix). This results in a four-way classification relating buyer effort/product differ-
entiation to buyer risk/marketing mix differentiation with suggestions for
marketing strategies relating to each of the convenience, shopping, specialty, and
preference quadrants.
After an exhaustive literature review of consumer goods categories, Murphy
and Enis (1986) organized almost all articles classifying consumer goods, based on
Copeland, into a table with two dimensions: effort and risk. Convenience goods
are low effort and low risk; and marketer’s can only employ limited marketing
mixes. Compared to convenience goods, preference goods are slightly higher
effort and much higher risk; and marketers can use a wider variety of mixes.
Shopping goods are still higher on both effort and risk dimensions; here
marketer’s can use the widest range of alternative mixes. Specialty goods are the
highest on effort and risk, but offer marketers the most limited range of alterna-
tive mixes. Murphy and Enis (1986: 30) concluded that based on the effort and
risk dimensions of price/cost, the four-fold classification is ‘superior’ to all others.
marketing theory 5(3)
articles
250
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 250
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
They supported their conclusion with four arguments: (1) it is buyer oriented;
(2) it is generalizable across all users [consumer, industrial], sectors [profit, non-
profit] and goods categories [products, services]; (3) the new classification recog-
nizes the central role of the benefit/cost bundle [benefits must equal or exceed the
costs of a transaction]; and (4) it has the advantage of using familiar terminology.
From the 1920s to 1980s, Copeland’s classification scheme produced one of the
longest strings of conceptually building upon and improving an original idea,
rather than abandoning a concept to the scrap heap of history or reinventing an
old concept with a new name. Nevertheless, there are a number of alternative
goods classification schemes in the literature, particularly categorizations featur-
ing bipolar alternatives: low-involvement versus high-involvement goods
(Krugman, 1965); products versus services (Lovelock, 1981; Rathmell, 1966;
Shostack, 1977 etc.) and many others.
Another classification scheme attracting marketing interest is the work of
Nelson (1970, 1974); he separated goods into two categories: search and experi-
ence, based on the relative costs of the good versus the costs of the search (build-
ing on Stigler’s [1961] work on the marginal value of information). With search
goods the benefits can be discovered by information search prior to purchase,
such as a computer or camcorder. On the other hand, with experience goods the
benefits can only be determined after purchase when the good is utilized, such as
toothpaste or fast food restaurants. These goods do not require much search
because they can be purchased inexpensively and discarded for an alternative
brand if not satisfactory, or because the cost of search is high relative to the
potential benefits. A third category called ‘credence goods’ was added by Darby
and Karni (1973), where the attributes of goods cannot be easily verified before or
after purchase. Credence goods require additional information search costs to
determine the good’s benefits or value, for example, a surgical operation or auto-
mobile repair that may not have been necessary. There is some similarity between
Copeland’s (1924), particularly Bucklin’s (1963) version of it, and Nelson’s (1970)
goods classification schemas, and Krugman’s (1965) schema as well. Shopping
goods and search goods require information search prior to purchase and are
usually high involvement except in the case of preference goods which are low
involvement. Convenience goods and experience goods are inexpensive enough to
allow sampling of alternatives or evaluation by purchase, do not require signifi-
cant information search, and are typically low involvement. Specialty goods
include but are not limited to credence goods and are very high involvement.
Institutional school
Marketing institutions refer to those who do the work of marketing, usually
marketing middlemen, including wholesalers, agents, brokers, and retailers. Sheth
et al. (1988: 74) wrote: ‘L.D.H. Weld deserves credit as the founding father of the
institutional school’ based on his discussion of the value of specialized middlemen
in performing marketing tasks. Weld (1916: 21) addressed the question: ‘Are there
A history of schools of marketing thought
Eric H. Shaw and D.G. Brian Jones
251
01_MT 5_3 8/18/05 1:29 PM Page 251
at SAGE Publications on October 16, 2009 http://mtq.sagepub.comDownloaded from