Management Implications of the Politics of Marketing

A number of recent research papers have suggested that the contingencies surrounding marketing decision making in organisations are such that marketing management may usefully be analysed as a political process. In this, the key to evaluating the power and politics of marketing is marketing information — as a source of formal organisational power and as a resource which can be manipulated politically to gain desired outcomes. This article examines briefly the basis for this style of analysis, but focuses mainly on the implications for the management of marketing in organisations, where a political analysis suggests that the management of marketing should concentrate not on techniques — of marketing research, or of rational, scientific decision making — but on structure and process, i.e. on power and political systems, to influence and control outcomes. To the familiar risks of “marketing myopia” may be added the danger of “political myopia”.