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Ama Jurnal Ob Marketing PDF
Ama Jurnal Ob Marketing PDF
Ama Jurnal Ob Marketing PDF
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Culture
and
Organizational
Defining the
Marketing:
Research Agenda
Contemporary work on marketing management is grounded implicitly in a structural functionalist or contingency perspective of organizational functioning. However, the field of organizational behavior from
which such a perspective derives has recently developed a major thrust into theoretical modeling and
empirical research on organizational culture. The authors survey this emerging literature on organizational culture, integrate it in a conceptual framework, and then develop a research agenda in marketing
grounded in the five cultural paradigms of comparative management, contingency management, organizational cognition, organizational symbolism, and structural/psychodynamism.
Journal of Marketing
Vol. 53 (January 1989), 3-15.
when marketing scholars turned to the behavioral sciences for guidance beginning in the late 1950s and
especially the 1960s, the study of culture focused exclusively on understanding consumer behavior, particularly the definition of cultures and subcultures as
market segments, culture as communication, the diffusion of innovations, and cross-cultural comparisons
of international markets (Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell 1968; Zaltman 1965). Subsequent treatments of
culture in marketing also have been limited mostly to
the consumer behavior area.
Several scholars recently have begun to recognize
the importance of organizational culture in the management of the marketing function. Weitz, Sujan, and
Sujan (1986) included organizational culture concepts
in their development of a model of selling effectiveness. Parasuraman and Deshpande (1984) suggested
that greater attention be paid to organizational culture
along with structural explanations for managerial effectiveness. Additionally, heightened concern for issues of implementation in marketing strategy (Walker
and Ruekert 1987) and the development of a customer
orientation within organizations is also raising questions related specifically to organizational culture
(Bonoma 1984; Deshpande and Parasuraman 1986;
Webster 1981, 1988). In fact, Mahajan, Varadarajan,
Kerin (1987) have gone so far as to suggest that the
Cultureand Marketing/ 3
Organizational
4 / Journalof Marketing,January1989
EarlyDefinitions
In a seminal paper by two anthropologists, 164 definitions of culture were analyzed in detail and the results were summarizedas a consensus statementthat
culture "is a product;is historical;includes ideas, patterns, and values;is selective;is learned;is based upon
symbols; and is an abstractionfrom behavior and the
productsof behavior"(Kroeberand Kluckhohn1952,
p. 157, quotedby Berelson and Steiner 1964, p. 644).
They found that culturehad been defined variously as
the values and beliefs shared by the members of a
society; the patternsof behaving, feeling, and reacting
shared by a society, including the unstatedpremises
underlyingthat behavior; learned responses that previously have met with success; habitual and traditional ways of thinking, feeling, and reactingthat are
characteristicof the ways a particulargroup of people
meets its problems;and anotherword for social reality, the things people take for granted.
Specifically for the concept of organizationalculture, definitionsofferedin recentstudiesinclude:"...
some underlying structureof meaning, that persists
over time, constrainingpeople's perception, interpretation, and behavior" (Jelinek, Smircich, and Hirsch
1983, p. 337), "a patternof beliefs and expectations
sharedby organizationmembers"(Schwartzand Davis
1981, p. 33), and "the system of . . . publicly and
tory and norms and values that members believe underlieclimate (the 'why do thingshappenthe way they
do') and the meanings organizationalmembers share
about the organization'simperative."
Level of Analysis
Some scholars view organizationalculture as a property of the group or organizationitself, like structure
or technology. Others view it as something that resides within each individualas a function of cognitive
and learning processes. As an individual property,
culture is the evaluations people make of the social
context of the organizationthat guide their behavior.
It is theirattemptto "makesense" of the organization.
Some argue that cultureis an exogenous environmental variable, one that cannot be managed but rather
must be accommodated, whereas others see it as a
variableendogenousto the organization(similarto organizational structure), mediating the way in which
the organizationrespondsto environmentalstimuli and
change. Still others argue that it is both process and
outcome because it shapes human interactionsand is
also the outcome of those interactions(Jelinek, Smircich, and Hirsch 1983, p. 331). We believe that culture is all of these things but that the differences arise
because of differences in theoretical approachto the
concept. We subsequently discuss further whether
marketingresearchersshould view culture as an exogenous or endogenous variable, a propertyof individuals or of organizations,because each perspective
is appropriatedepending on the marketing problem
being addressed.
Survey Research Versus Ethnographic
Research
andMarketing
Culture
/5
Organizational
1989
6 / Journal
of Marketing,
January
ways of coping with experience," she studied technical professional company employees in the Silicon
Valley of California.One of her principalconclusions
is thatmultipleculturesare not simply subculturessuch
as departmentsof the organization, but may also be
national,regional/geographic,or industryculturesthat
are backgroundcontext for the organization, or may
be occupational and ethnic cultures that cut across a
given organization. Among the many interesting issues that marketingresearchersmight examine using
this "nativeviews" concept of cultureare conflict between sales and marketingdepartments,cooperation
between R&D and marketingdepartmentsin the development of new products, and assignment of sales
representativesto customers on the basis of ethnic,
regional, or professionalbackgroundsimilarity.
A Conceptual Framework of
Organizational Culture Paradigms
The different conceptions of culture lead to a bewildering complexity in interpretation.To provide theoretical guidance for researchersin marketing,we try
to integratethe organizationalbehaviorliteraturewhile
retaining the importantdistinctions being made. We
refer to Smircich's (1983a) insightful review of the
various approachesto the study of organizationalculture, which she summarizesinto five different paradigms. In the first two, one can think of culture as a
variable and in the others as a metaphor for the organizationitself. Table 1 lists the key theoreticalfeatures of the five paradigms.
Culture as a Variable
In the comparative management approach, culture can
be viewed as a variable exogenous to the firm, influ-
TABLE 1
Theoretical Features of Organizational Culture Paradigms'
Organizational
Paradigm
1. Comparative
management
2. Contingency
management
3. Organizational
cognition
4. Organizational
symbolism
Locus of Culture
Exogenous, independent variable
Endogenous, independent
variable
Culture as metaphor for
organizational knowledge
systems
Culture as metaphor for shared
symbols and meanings
Culture as metaphor for
unconscious mind
CultureandMarketing
/ 7
Organizational
rituals(the "Mondaymorningstaffmeeting"),andother
symbolic processes that help create shared organizational meanings.
From a structural/psychodynamic perspective, the
Concepts of OrganizationalCulture
Applied to Marketing
Specific theoreticalstructuresmight be appropriatefor
specific marketingproblems. In defining the research
agendafor organizationalculturein marketing,it makes
sense to try to identify a set of research issues that
might flow from the organizationalcultureparadigms.
Though we cannotbe exhaustive in such an endeavor,
we hope to be provocative in suggesting researchdirections that will develop relatively unexploredintellectual territoryin marketing.
Our specific objective in developing a research
agenda on organizationalculturetopics for marketing
scholars is to contribute to the study of marketing
management. In this endeavor we are explicitly interventionist, but are committed to the premise that
managementpractice, and the teaching of marketing
8 / Journalof Marketing,
January1989
to future managers, is strengthenedby the development and applicationof sound theory. We believe that
improving marketing management serves to make
companies more responsive to customer needs (and,
as noted before, a customer orientationis a type of
organizationalculture). Hence, though we distinguish
between the first two and the other three paradigms
of organizationalculture on the basis of an instrumental-metaphoricalclassification, we now examine
all five paradigmsin terms of their potential contributions to the study and improvementof marketing
management. Table 2 summarizesthe marketingresearch and methodological implications of the five
paradigms.
TABLE 2
Implications of Organizational Culture Paradigms for Marketing Research and Methodology
Organizational
Paradigm
Methodological Implications
Marketing Research Implications
1. Cbmparative
Cross-cultural study of standardization vs.
Cross-sectional survey research
customization of international marketing programs
marketing
management
Research on relative effectiveness of cost-based vs.
culture-based marketing control mechanisms in
different countries
2. Contingency
Research on impact of customer needs satisfactionCross-sectional survey research
or ethnographic methods
oriented culture vs. stockholder wealth
marketing
maximization-oriented culture on market
management
performance
Relative impact of organizational structure and
culture on innovativeness
Research on making marketing strategy consistent
with culture and structure
Role of CEO in creating and disseminating a
customer orientation
Extent of differentiation of marketing department in
a firm and its impact on "marketing marketing" to
top management
Impact of environmental change on the nature and
effectiveness of brand management structures
Research on the creation, dissemination, and use of
3. Marketing
Ethnographic or
phenomenological research
marketing knowledge in firms
cognition
Study of impact of organizational restructuring on
shared marketing cognitions
Research on sources of organizational conflicts
involving marketing and other departments (e.g.,
marketing/R&Dconflicts in new product
development process)
Research on the socialization of new marketing
4. Marketing
Ethnographic or
recruits
phenomenological research
symbolism
Impact of strong marketing socialization on
creativity and innovativeness
Study of importance of organizational symbols in
sales transactions
Research on the historical development of "market5. Structural/
Ethnographic or historical
research
driven" firms as expression of founders' wills
psychodynamic
perspective in
marketing
!
dardization and Nestle believing in local market adaptation-yet both are extremely successful consumer
goods marketers.
Though several thoughtful conceptual articles have
been written on the relevance of national culture to
globalization (Levitt 1983), few empirical studies have
examined the issue. An important exception is the recent work of Gatignon and Anderson (1987) who use
transaction cost analysis to explain the extent of control exerted by multinational corporations over their
foreign subsidiaries. They find that American multinationals generally take lower control levels in
countries where a greater "sociocultural distance" is
perceived (i.e., where American executives feel uncomfortable with the values and operating methods in
a host country).
Clearly the success of any international marketing
strategy depends not only on the extent of its conformity to customer cultural norms but also on the
conformity with the values and beliefs of employees
in various host countries, as Hofstede's (1980) landmark survey of the work-related values of 116,000
respondents in 40 countries suggests in a broader
management context. For example, are marketing
managers in an East Asian subsidiary of a British parent company more or less likely than their East Af-
andMarketing
Culture
/ 9
Organizational
rican counterpartsto adopt British marketing programs?An interestingtopic in this contextis the residual
impactof colonial heritageson the relative rate of diffusion of Europeanmarketingstrategiesin Asian and
African cultures.
Anotherrelated topic of interestis the relative effectiveness of various marketingcontrol mechanisms
for different national or regional cultures. Marketing
control has been defined as a system of methods, procedures, and devices used by marketingmanagersto
ensure compliance with marketingpolicies and strategies (Park and Zaltman 1987, p. 599-600). Discussions of such marketingcontrolsystems typicallyhave
been framed in traditionalaccounting theory involving cost and performancevariance monitoring (Anthony, Dearden, and Bradford1984; Hulbertand Toy
1977), yet a comparativemarketingmanagementperspective suggests an importantalternativemechanism
for implementingmarketingcontrol. Ouchi (1980, p.
132) provides the illustration of Japanese firms exercising a form of "clan control," training their employees so they need not be monitoredclosely: "It is
not necessary for these organizationsto measure performance to control or direct their employees, since
the employees' natural(socialized) intention is to do
what is best for the firm." This approachallows simultaneous discretion and control, with people expressing autonomy within culturallimits. It is an importantalternativeto traditionalmechanismsof control,
which frequentlyhave the counterproductiveresult of
creating resistance among employees who see it as a
corrective ratherthan a monitoring device (Jaworski
1988). Lebas and Weigenstein (1986) furthersuggest
that culture control is graduallyreplacing rules-based
control as organizationsundergoing productivitydeclines search for new ways of managing employees.
An area of researchinquiryfor marketingscholars
is the extent to which such alternativeforms of marketing control can lead to equivalent or higher productivity in variouscustomercontact functions. Three
such functions are salesforce, distributor, and customer service management.Is clan control superiorto
cost/performance-orientedmarketingcontrol in these
marketingfunctions in different countries in which a
multinationalfirm operates(e.g., in monitoringsalesforce performancein Franceand Germany)?Does this
superiorityvarynot only by countrybut by region(e.g.,
are there southwestern and northeasterndifferences
within the U.S. in terms of the relative effectiveness
of accounting-basedversus culture-based marketing
control mechanisms in distributionchannel management)?
Because each of the three researchtopics noted is
grounded in the comparative management perspective, it seems sensible to at least begin the empirical
inquiry by using survey research methods. Those
10 / Journalof Marketing,
January1989
methods have been used successfully in several analogous studies on organizationalculturesuch as that of
Hofstede (1980) and could be adaptedsuccessfully to
marketinginquiries. Further,the polling of managers
in several nationsabout which marketingpracticesare
successes and failures is well suited to survey methods.
CultureandMarketing
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1989
12 / Journal
of Marketing,
January
Marketing Symbolism
The fourth culturalparadigm,organizationalsymbolism, is rooted in both symbolic anthropology and
symbolic organization theory. Marketing scholars
workingin this areawould searchfor patternsof symbolic discourse where cultureis a metaphorfor shared
symbols and meanings. The most common methodological approachhas been ethnographic,though certain inquiries might be pursued by survey research
methods.
A majortopic for researchin this areais marketing
socialization. Both recruitmentand training of new
marketingand sales personnel are culture-relatedactivities that might be interpretedin terms of the particular symbols attachedto both formal and informal
socialization. PepsiCo Inc., for example, is known for
a corporateculture that encourages internalcompetitiveness among marketingmanagers as a simulation
of the competitiveness in the industries in which it
operates. Coca-Cola, in contrast,is known for a much
more conservative, traditionalcorporateculturewhere
internal consensus is deemed importantin order to
present a united front in the marketplace.These two
packaged goods companies derive a substantialportion of their overall revenue from the same product
categories, but their proceduresfor employee socialization would be extremely different.
In some respects, personnelselection is the single
most crucial human resources decision in management and yet is almost never studied by marketing
scholars. To work together as a team, marketingpersonnel need to understandnot only theirown jobs and
their interrelationshipsto the jobs of others, but also
the values, norms, and ideologies of the entire company and of the departmentalsubunit. The organizational symbolism perspective can be useful in interpretingthe culture,especiallyfor well-establishedfirms.
As Schein (1984, p. 10) notes: "Becausecultureserves
the functionof stabilizingthe externaland internalenvironmentof an organization,it must be taughtto new
members. It would not serve its function if every generationof new memberscould introducenew perceptions, language, thinking patterns, and rules of interaction. For culture to serve its function, it must be
perceived as correct and valid, and if it is perceived
thatway, it automaticallyfollows thatit must be taught
to newcomers."
An organizationalsymbolismperspectivemight be
helpful in understandingthe dilemma of how to socialize newcomers into the currentorganizationalor
marketingdepartmentculturewithout diminishingthe
creativity and innovativeness that different perspectives frequentlybring. Does a strongprogramof marketing socialization dampen creativity of expression?
Perhapsthis is one of the majorissues to be addressed
in studying brandmanagementsystems in well-estab-
Structural/Psychodynamic Perspective
in Marketing
The fifth culture paradigm is grounded in both the
structuralismof Levi-Strauss (1963) and transformational organizationtheory (Turner 1983). Here organizational culture is seen as a metaphorfor the unconscious mind and the organizationitself is a form
of human expression.
Perhaps the most interesting research question is
how a company develops as an expression of the will
of its founders. Though little use has been made of
historical research in marketing (Savitt 1980), this
question would be excellent for applicationof a set of
methods using archival data to interprethow an organizationgrows. Especially pertinenthere would be
the studyof firmswe thinkof as being "market-driven,"
companies such as Procter & Gamble in consumer
packaged goods, General Electric in durable goods,
IBM in industrialproducts, and AmericanExpress in
services. What is it about the founders of these companies that was translatedinto specific organizational
What
arrangementsconducive to being market-driven?
is it that drives certain inventors and entrepreneursto
create organizations to market their products while
others are content to have their ideas exploited?
The five organizationalcultureparadigmsprovide
many directions for research on topics relevant to
marketing management. Note that the levels of investigation differ among the paradigms. In the comparative marketingmanagementperspective, culture
is approachedas a backgroundvariableand hence inquiry is at the level of the environment. In the contingency marketingmanagementperspective, culture
is seen as an independentvariable and hence inquiry
is at the level of the organization. In the three re-
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