Revising the Structural Framework for Marketing Management

Despite its pedagogical predominance during the last four decades, marketing scholars increasingly doubt the value of the 4Ps schema. As a prelude to a new precursory structural framework for marketing management, criticisms and previously proposed modifications of the 4Ps are reviewed briefly. Next, the basic premise of Hunt’s four explananda of marketing theory–that exchange is the core concept of marketing–is made uncertain by evidence culled from multiple sources. If true, then circumscribing the domain of marketing management from an exchange focus may be problematic. To address this concern and previous criticisms, an alternative structural framework, grounded in a set of basic questions important to marketing practitioners and scholars, is proposed. By outlining a unifying framework for marketing management practice, pedagogy, and theory development, this question set may spur efforts that help dissipate the continuing academician-practitioner miasma.