MARKETING IN THE 21ST CENTURY COMMENTARY Strategy Content and Process Perspectives Revisited

Sheth and Sisodia (1999) in their article titled, " Revisit-ing Marketing's Lawlike Generalizations, " make a number of timely and insightful observations centered on the question of why some lawlike generalizations in marketing may need to be either modified or enhanced. According to the authors, the need for revisiting generalizations in marketing has risen in light of the fact that the context under which these were initially advanced has changed significantly. Although I do not fully concur with some of their assertions, assessments of the current state of the field, and the direction in which the field should move forward, in the aggregate, I agree with the basic thrust of their article. 1 A dynamic discipline, such as marketing, should periodically undertake an assessment of its inventory of generalizations and critically evaluate the need for refinements and modifications. In fact, beyond refinements and modifications, such a critical assessment might also point to theories, concepts, analytic frameworks, tools, techniques, and so on that merit being discarded. There is indeed a pressing need for the marketing discipline to undertake a housecleaning initiative to rid its textbooks of outdated business concepts and analytical tools and techniques of dubious value. Analogous to the top management of multibusiness firms having to address the scope decision (what new businesses should be added to the firm's portfolio, and what businesses should be deleted from the firm's portfolio?) and marketing management having to address the product mix decision (what new product lines, product items, and brands should be added to the present product mix, and which of the present product lines, product items, and brands should be deleted from the mix?), there is a need for marketing educators to address a similar set of ques-tions—what to add, what to retain, what to modify, and what to delete from the current inventory of ideas, concepts , analytic frameworks, tools, and techniques. A major premise underlying Sheth and Sisodia's (1999) work is that, more than perhaps any other field of scientific inquiry, marketing is context dependent. When the numerous contextual elements surrounding the practice of marketing change (such as economic forces, societal norms, demographic characteristics, public policy, globalization, or communication technologies), they can have a significant impact on the nature and scope of the discipline. Such being the case, the authors note that a critical reassessment of marketing's lawlike generalizations is warranted. The authors focus on marketing's lawlike generalizations in …