Driven to excess? Linking calling, character and the (mis)behaviour of marketers

Woodall, T ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8949-5577, 2012. Driven to excess? Linking calling, character and the (mis)behaviour of marketers. Marketing Theory, 12 (2), pp. 173-191. ISSN 1470-5931

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Abstract

We are presently at a point of unique circumstantial convergence where recession, an increased emphasis on business ethics, and marketer’s reluctance to accept shifting social agendas have combined to identify the need for a new approach to marketing. Using concepts from the human resources, marketing and psychology literatures, and especially Erich Fromm’s ideas concerning economic character, this paper posits that marketers – as a professional community – are driven to promote consumerist outcomes; victims of an automaton amalgam of calling and character. The analysis suggests the vulnerability of both marketer and consumer are mutually reinforcing and that we need, somehow, to break this damaging cycle of dependence. We know little, however, about how marketers think and feel about their discipline, so this paper also promotes an agenda for marketer behaviour research, as a countervailing balance to a currently disproportionate focus on the consumer.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Marketing Theory
Creators:	Woodall, T.
Publisher:	Sage
Date:	June 2012
Volume:	12
Number:	2
ISSN:	1470-5931
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1177/1470593111418797 DOI 545198 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	EPrints Services
Date Added:	09 Oct 2015 10:59
Last Modified:	31 May 2021 15:14
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/21095

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