Design of a Marketing Information System: Useful Paradigms Available to Purchase

So far there has been a lack of consideration of core philosophies in the literature on Marketing Information Systems Design. Three possible paradigms which could be used are discussed, namely the prescriptive approach, positivism and phenomenology. The possibility of combining paradigms is also investigated. A case study of an application developed by the authors for a buying group of Scottish retailers is described as two sub‐systems, one using the prescriptive approach and the other phenomenology. Mixed scanning and proto‐typing, as complements to the phenomenology paradigm are outlined.