The General Theory of Marketing

Journal of Marketing. Vol. 32 (January. 1968). pp. 29-33. S INCE the end of World War II, marketing thought has developed along a number of different lines, with the result that it has been increasingly difficult to know, teach, or practice the "whole" of marketing. Traditionalists in marketing have not thought in the terminology of behaviorists who do not think as do quantifiers who do not always think as managerialists or comparativists. One is compelled to ask whether or not this is a breakdown in our knowledge of marketing, in the cohesiveness of this field of scientific endeavor. An answer to this question is suggested by what is occurring in other areas of science and education: the proliferation of facts is forcing the integration of knowledge on higher planes of unification and abstraction. Everywhere the enlargement of human experience through access to extended mental and physical realms is altering both the content and the forms of knowledge. Research is yielding new facts, and the overlapping of fields of study has produced new relationships, laws, and theories. The effort to state a unified field theory in physics is indicative of attempts to break barriers and to produce theory which embraces new discoveries and heretofore unrelated areas of thought. Developments in marketing thought have been similar to those in other fields. Marketing practice, viewpoints, concepts, and approaches to the study have all been changing. Products and services have increased in number. The practice of marketing has become more people-oriented. Public constraints have tempered private objectives. And the influences of environment have become more apparent. These changes, too, have altered both the content and the form of marketing thought, producing greater diversity of theories and a corresponding need for the unification of them. Considerable attention has been given by marketing scholars to theory, and the nature of theory in marketing has been much discussed. There is agreement that marketing is susceptible to theoretical statement, and evidence of theorization is increasingly apparent. Yet little is said about a general theory of marketing, although, as in other fields, the time appears to be ripe for consideration of this point. It is helpful to recognize that theory grows somewhat like a sandpile: the higher its pinnacle, the broader must be its base; the broader its base, the higher it must rise before a sharp vertex or focus is attained. A given base of facts or experience supports its own structure of generalization and abstraction, as illustrated by Figure l (a ) . While extended study may reinforce theory already derived, broadening the base of inquiry has two other principal effects upon the structure of thought: it raises the level of