Situated learning and marketing: Moving beyond the rational technical thought cage

Abstract

Purpose

A range of previous studies show that large numbers of practitioners do not adopt the prescriptive model of marketing planning. The research objective was to determine how marketing managers actually do go about making marketing planning decisions and what the consequences of this are for marketing educators.

Design/methodology/approach

The research methodology is based on a series of in depth interviews carried out with senior marketing managers in a diverse range of business organisations.

Findings

Results show that marketing in practice is about a local logic of action, rather than the implementation of systemic theory. Marketing expertise is shown to consist of a broad range of skills, knowledge and experientially‐based judgements. As a result of this it is argued that significant implications exist for marketing education.

Research limitations/implications

This was a relatively small scale study and the issues it raises could be usefully explored with a range of other respondents who practice marketing in order to uncover their approaches to strategy development and implementation.

Practical implications

It is argued that marketing education should take possession of a pedagogic framework based on the concept of situated learning, where full account is taken of the experiential and social basis of knowledge. The paper goes on to outline some approaches based on the idea of situated learning, indicating how they might be best used by marketing educators.

Originality/value

This paper shows that the curriculum needs to take account of the argument that marketing reality is constituted by individual interpretation and language and not by a structural framework which sees the person as being conditioned by a rational technical system of marketing knowledge.

Citation

Ardley, B. (2006), "Situated learning and marketing: Moving beyond the rational technical thought cage", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 202-217. https://doi.org/10.1108/02634500610665682