George M.

Zinkhan & Rudy Hirschheim

Truth in Marketing Theory and

Research: An Alternative
Perspective
Numerous authors have discussed the possibility of a marketing science and have presented their visions
to describe the characteristics of such a science. Fundamentally, these visions must come to grips with
the idea of "truth" and the role truth plays in theory and research. In this article, the authors explore
"truth in marketing science" by describing the essential problem of science in general and discussing
the issues that shape the notion of a marketing science in particular. They note two limiting factors in
viewing marketing as a science: (1) marketing as an applied field and (2) marketing's attempts to explain
human behavior-a phenomenon that is mutable, unpredictable, and reactive. They propose a scientific
realist perspective, which can be useful for describing some of the "scientific" explanations offered in
the marketing literature.

T HERE is a continuing debate about the scientific

status of marketing. If marketing is to be a sci-
ence, what kind of science should it be? In a recent
article, Hunt (1990) argues that "the pursuit of truth"
(p. 8) is an appropriate goal for marketing science.
He contends that "truth is essential in science" (p. 12)
and is concerned with what appears to be happening
with the notion of truth and its role in science (cf.
Anderson 1983; Deshpande 1983). We believe there
are several problems associated with Hunt's discus-
sion of "scientific truths" and "marketing truths." Those
problems fundamentally revolve around what might
be termed the "essential problem in science"-"How
do we know what we know?" and, following from
that, "How do we acquire knowledge?" This age-old
problem has been at the core of science since its in-
ception and the solution is arguably as contentious now
as it has been for centuries.
George M. Zinkhan and Rudy Hirschheim are Associate Professors of
Marketing, College of Business Administration, University of Houston.
The authors thank a number of colleagues fortheir comments and input
on the initial draft of this article, in particular Ed Blair, Chris Zinkhan,
Madeline Johnson, and Alladi Venkatesh. They also thank the anony-
mous JM reviewers for their most constructive suggestions.
The Essential Problem of Science
The Greeks felt the primary role of science was to tum
"doxa" (that which is believed to be true) into "ep-
isteme" (that which is known to be true). But the
Sophists questioned how, and even if, that could be
done. They asked whether it is possible to know that
something is true. The argument since then has cen-
tered around whether knowledge can ever be "proven."
To put it differently, does it make any sense to search
for "truth" as though it exists as some independent
reality? Conventional philosophical wisdom now holds
that knowledge is not infallible but conditional; it is
a societal convention and is relative to both time and
place. Knowledge is a matter of community accep-
tance. The criteria for acceptance are an agreed set of
conventions that must be followed if the knowledge
is to be accepted by the community. The set of con-
ventions are not arbitrary, but are well thought out
and have historically produced knowledge claims that
have withstood the test of time. In any society there
are a myriad of knowledge claims; the ones that are
accepted are the ones that can be supported by the
forces of the better argument. They are an agreed best
understanding of what has been produced at a partic-
ular point in time. (Such knowledge claims may be-

Journal of Marketing
80 / Journal of Marketing, April 1992 Vol. 56 (April 1992), 80-88
come unaccepted as further information is produced
in the future.) We thus consider science, in its current
sense, to be a convention-related to societal norms,
expectations, and values-that is used to engage in a
search for understanding. Science uses whatever tools,
techniques, and approaches are considered appropri-
ate for the particular subject matter under study. Sny-
der (1978) discusses science in terms of ". . . some-
thing that people do. It is not a particular set of
assertions or theories, but a set of activities that may
or may not produce organized theories."
Science, for all intents and purposes, is a problem-
solving vehicle. It is, as Anderson (1983, p. 25) puts
it, "essentially a process of consensus formation." The
consequence of this conception of science is that vir-
tually any scholarly attempt at acquiring knowledge
could be construed to be "science." The demarcation
between science (normal science) and non science
(pseudoscience) blurs, and the blurring is unlikely to
clear. Laudan (1980, p. 275) writes:
The fact that 2400 years of searching for a demar-
cation criterion has left us empty-handed raises a pre-
sumption that the object of the quest is non-existent.
Note how this notion of science places the emphasis
of knowledge acquisition on the "community";
knowledge (truth) is a communal achievement. It is
what the community agrees to bestow the label
"knowledge" or "truth" upon. It is not arbitrary, as
it is based on the accepted conventions of the time.
Nor is it entirely relativistic. Knowledge, in this con-
text, is not the relativistic notion that "everything is
relative, where no knowledge claim is any better than
any other," as might be argued by, for example, Fey-
erabend (1975). On the contrary, knowledge claims
are scrutinized through the accepted community con-
ventions; only those claims that are judged to be ac-
ceptable through an informed debate are adopted. But
it is not simply the method that dictates the acceptance
of a knowledge claim-it is the strength of the ar-
guments brought to bear to support the claim. I It is
the community that ultimately decides on the strength
of a particular argument.
'Habermas (1984) offers a good theoretical account on how this
might be done through his so-called "ideal speech situation." The ideal
speech situation allows participants to resolve differences and mis-
understanding without giving up their consensual orientation, because
in the absence of external force, the cogency of reason will make the
better argument win. Insofar as the consensus is based only "on the
force of the better argument," it may be termed "rational" (cf. Ha-
bermas 1984, Ch. 1.3). For example, if an argument "wins" because
of opportunism, considerations of power, or lack of motivation by the
other side to explain their point of view, then it wins not by the "force
of pure reason" and hence the consensus would not be called "ra-
tional." A rational consensus would be replicated at all times as long
as the state of knowledge does not change and thus lead to new ar-
guments that are "stronger."
The Notion of Science in
Marketing
This notion of science is well articulated in Laudan' s
(1977) so-called "reticulated model of scientific ra-
tionality" and forms the basis of Anderson's (1986)
"critical relativist" position. It has come under attack
in the recent marketing literature (cf. Hunt 1990; Sie-
gel 1988), and it is with some of the arguments used
against the critical relativist's position that we take
exception. As Siegel's (1988) two primary criticisms
(i.e., internal inconsistency and self-refuting) of An-
derson's (1986) position were aptly addressed by An-
derson (1988), we focus here on the comments of Hunt
(1990), particularly his argument on the need to have
"truth" in marketing research.
Hunt contends that "truth is essential in science"
(p. 12) and is concerned with what appears to be hap-
pening with the notion of truth and its role in science.
He perceives the trend away from the rather naive no-
tion of truth found in early marketing writing (the cor-
respondence theory of meaning) toward the relativ-
istic/constructionist position that "truth is a subjective
evaluation that cannot be properly inferred outside the
context provided by the theory" (Peter and Olson 1983,
p. 119). However, it is with the critical relativist po-
sition that he takes specific exception, particularly its
advocation of the abandonment of truth: "I have made
it quite clear that 'truth' plays no role in the ontology
of critical relativism" (Anderson 1986, p. 134). Hunt
argues that truth must not be abandoned in marketing
theory and research; indeed, truth should be the goal.
To support the case, Hunt seeks to destroy the argu-
ments used by the critical relativists. For example,
though the critical relativists make a strong case against
convergent realism, Hunt suggests that there is no need
to dispense with the notion of truth simply because
convergent realism is philosophically untenable. He
states (p. 5):
Does it "stand to reason" that marketing should aban-
don truth because "convergent" realism is false?
Clearly the answer must be "no." It is totally inco-
herent to claim that truth should be abandoned as a
goal because a particular theory of science (conver-
gent realism) is false.
Hunt goes on to castigate critical relativism for using
the very concepts that it purports to stand against, viz.
truth and falsity. He continues his attack by showing
that this latest version of relativism is still self-refut-
ing and, moreover, incoherent and unintelligible. Those
arguments are not new, nor are the arguments used
by the critical relativists to defend their position. The
problem seems to be with the notion of "truth." Any
attempt to dispense with that notion typically incurs
the wrath of the realist community. Hunt clearly can-
Truth in Marketing Theory and Research / 81
not accept its abandonment. Instead he proffers the
views of scientific realism (p. 9):
Scientific realism is also a critical realism, contend-
ing that the job of science is to use its method to
improve our perceptual (measurement) processes,
separate illusion from reality, and thereby generate
the most accurate possible description and under-
standing of the world .... In short, scientific realism
proposes that (I) the world exists independently of
its being perceived (classical realism), (2) the job of
science is to develop genuine knowledge about the
world, even though such knowledge will never be
known with certainty (fallibilistic realism), and (3)
all knowledge claims must be critically evaluated and
tested to determine the extent to which they do, or
do not, truly represent or correspond to that world
(critical realism).
But as has been argued both vociferously and volu-
minously in the past, that position too is unsatisfac-
tory. The realist ontological position, in the social do-
main, is untenable; Berger and Luckmann (1967) have
clearly shown that what we perceive as an objective
reality is subjectively constructed. Because human
beings cannot transcend their language and culture,
they cannot obtain any absolute viewpoint. That point
is eloquently made by Sayers (1987, p. 144), who
states:
... the hope that we could have more than the cer-
tainty provided by our own language games and forms
of life, involves an absurdity. It presupposes that we
could somehow step outside our own network and
judge it from a God's-eye or no-eye view. Instead,
although our most basic beliefs are social products,
we are in them.
Hence, one must question whether, in the social do-
main, it makes sense to focus on the notion of truth
as it is essentially a social construction. Instead, one
might do better to focus on the believability of a
knowledge claim-does it "speak" (in a hermeneutic
sense) to the individual?
A second concern surfacing from Hunt's article is
his reification of terms. He uses the term "entity" to
refer to a host of abstractions about which marketing
researchers can inquire. Entities include both tangible
and intangible things, and are postulated to exist. He
states (p. 11):
... we are warranted in believing that something like
the postulated entities and their structure of relation-
ships exists, that is, they truly represent or corre-
spond to some reality external to the theorist [italics
added].
His examples in sociology of "racist beliefs" and "un-
fair treatment of racial groups" and in political science
of "totalitarian political regimes" and "repress all hu-
man rights" are all at a very high level of abstraction.
Their ontological "existence" is very different from
that of something much less abstract, such as tables
or chairs. The point missed by Hunt in both his 1990
82/ Journal of Marketing, AprH 1992
article and his comment on "reification and realism"
(1989) is that researchers reify those abstractions so
they can research them by using orthodox (traditional)
methods (e.g., hypothetico-deductive method). In so
doing, they cause the inquiry to become contrived,
artificial, and illusory. This is precisely the point made
by Monieson (1988) in his call for "de-reification"
and "enchantment." Hunt's (1989) criticism of Mon-
ieson is unfortunately based on a misconception of the
notion of reification. He states that reification is the
process whereby one treats a concept as real, taking
unobservable concepts such as love and intentions and
treating them as having a real existence. His argument
with Monieson is that he feels the latter equates "treat
as real" with "treat as a commodity" (Hunt 1989, p.
7). In fact, that is precisely what Monieson intends.
According to the highly influential The Social Con-
struction ofReality by Berger and Luckman (1967, p.
89), reification refers to the "apprehension of human
phenomena as if they were things, that is, non-human
or possibly suprahuman terms. . . . [T]he apprehen-
sion of the products of human activity as if they were
something else than human products-such as facts
of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of
divine will." It is this abstracting away of human au-
thorship that is at the core of the problem with reifi-
cation, not the treating of a concept as real. Monieson
(1989) too took offense with Hunt's misuse of the no-
tion of reification, extensively quoting Thomason
(1982), who discusses it as elements of experiences
that are attributed "unjustified concreteness, auton-
omy, facticity, impersonality, objectivity, and inde-
pendence" (p. 11) Reification leads to what White-
head (1925) referred to as the "fallacy of misplaced
concreteness"-believing there is an underlying
structure that explains all phenomena and pursuing it
through research by "objectivizing" social constructs.
The research provides an "illusion of objectivity." The
result according to Monieson (1988, p. 9) is a re-
lentless pursuit of intellectualization in a world where
"human values become unnecessary emotional bag-
gage." Hunt's focusing on truth, believing it has an
independent existence of its own, and his reification
error must cast doubt on the call to adopt his version
of scientific realism. His simple dismissal of critical
relativism, on the grounds that it is incoherent and
self-refuting and more fundamentally flawed on nihil-
istic and solipsistic grounds, misses the mark. As the
scientific pursuit of knowledge is a communal
achievement, it is not the "anything goes" vision por-
trayed by Hunt (1990), but the shared beliefs, under-
standings, conventions, and claims adopted by the
community. In fact, communal acceptance is the es-
sence of science.
 Marketing Truths and Marketing
as a Science
Hunt argues that his version of a fallibilistic and crit-
ical realism offers "a middle ground position between
direct realism and relativism" (p. 9). Key contentions
associated with this perspective are that "some of our
perceptions are 'more accurate' or 'closer to the truth'
than others" and that "the job of science is to develop
genuine knowledge about the world" (p. 9). Both of
those positions imply that there is an immutable truth
that scientists can study. Over some reasonable time
span (say, 10 millennia), such may be the case for
some natural sciences. For example, as sixteenth cen-
tury astronomers struggled to understand the motion
of the planets, the planetary orbits themselves were
not changing (from decade to decade). Indeed, if they
had been, physicists might still be without adequate
theories to predict events within our solar system.
However, we argue here that it is exactly such a sit-
uation that a marketing scientist must face. The ob-
jects marketers attempt to understand are in a constant
state of flux (from generation to generation, for ex-
ample), and any "marketing truths" that are discov-
ered are not immutable.
Because marketing science is concerned primarily
with transactions between buyers and sellers, what-
ever marketing truths exist are going to be embedded
in a social world. Marketing is a social science; con-
sequently, marketing generalizations are not going to
be stable over time. Patterns of human activity may
be in a continuous state of emergence, in the sense
that they largely reflect contemporary contingencies
(Gergen 1977). For marketing managers, those con-
temporary contingencies include fads, fashions, the
type of product being sold, competitive activities, cul-
tural changes, and so on.
As marketing scholars, we are trying to hit a mov-
ing target. Psychologists have long accepted the fact
that human personalities change with passing gener-
ations (Gergen 1978). Of all the business disciplines,
marketing may be the most influenced by changing
fads and fashions. For example, we would not expect
that a marketing study surveying a sample of house-
wives in the 1950s and one conducted in the 1990s
would yield similar results. As buyers are increasingly
motivated by wants (rather than needs), it becomes
increasingly difficult to discover generalizations and
truths that can be expected to remain stable over time.
Hence, highly abstract theories of marketing behav-
iors have limited predictive value until they are linked
to lower order generalizations (which take fashions into
account)." However, the lower order generalizations
ZIt must be noted, however, that predictive ability is not the sole
basis of a theory's usefulness; highly abstract theories are more useful
are subject to the tides of history and the changing
whims of society. Under such circumstances, mar-
keting theory can make few if any predictive state-
ments about the concrete instance. One must already
grasp the flow of concrete events before applying the
theory (Gergen 1976).
In a similar way, we are discovering that market-
ing truths may not remain constant across cultures.
For example, we are beginning to realize that the mar-
keting strategies found to be successful in the United
States may not be easy to transfer to Europe or Asia
without significant alterations. There is an increasing
interest in studying cultural differences and in iden-
tifying ways to adapt advertising and marketing strat-
egies (Gilly 1988). Again, we are in the position of
trying to hit a moving target.
Increasingly, we find that we must place qualifi-
cations around what we have "learned" in marketing.
For example, we long have recognized that industrial
marketing may be very different from consumer mar-
keting, and that we must be careful about making
generalizations from one subarea to another. Subse-
quently (circa 1975), we discovered that services mar-
keting may be very different from product marketing;
once again, a subarea of study was begun and we dis-
covered that many marketing principles or traditions
may not apply in the new area of inquiry.
In brief, marketing scholars and managers study
human behavior. And, as sociologists and psycholo-
gists have previously noted, the social world is ex-
ceedingly complex. All sorts of explanation and de-
scription seem accurate in some respects. For example,
to explain human behavior, there are biological
accounts, physiological accounts, psychological ac-
counts, sociological accounts, anthropological ac-
counts, economic accounts, and so on. Each of those
accounts are (sometimes) contradictory and involve
(often) irreconcilable assumptions. Even more dis-
turbing, the accounts really describe overlapping and
interacting worlds. It is generally believed that those
worlds interact in ways that are beyond the ability of
modem-day social scientists to predict.
In addition, the objects of marketing inquiry (i.e.,
buyers and sellers) change their behavior in response
to marketing research and practices. For example, there
is a human drive for uniqueness; many people (con-
sumers) do not like the notion that their behavior can
be predicted. That observation provides one expla-
nation for fast-changing Western cultural trends. Un-
like the natural scientist, marketers (and other social
scientists) use descriptive and explanatory terms that
have the capacity to shape the character of social ac-
for organizing and explaining. The higher the level of abstraction, the
less predictive power because predictions are usually tested empiri-
cally, thus only getting at the properties of the lowest level abstrac-
tions in the theoretical structure.
Truth in Marketing Theory and Research / 83
tivities about which accounts are fashioned. Thus, as
is demonstrated in the following section, we have often
faced difficulty when we have tried to establish finn
philosophical foundations for a marketing science.
The Philosophical Foundations of
Marketing
Throughout his article, Hunt is concerned with what
he calls the "philosophical foundations" (p. 1) of mar-
keting. However, for a variety of reasons, it has been
sometimes difficult within the field of marketing to
develop a consensus about the meaning of key terms
and concepts (Dobni and Zinkhan 1990). Here, we
perform a "foundations analysis" by examining the
evolving definitions proposed for "brand image" and
examine the knowledge claims made about that key
marketing concept. A selection of brand image defi-
nitions, in chronological order, are stated in Table 1.
We believe this collection of definitions demonstrates
that marketing researchers have not succeeded in es-
tablishing a stable, immutable conceptualization of
brand image. Instead, we see the definition constantly
changing and, in some respects, the changes have more
to do with evolving research fads (and interests) within
the field than with an increasing refinement of knowl-
edge or an approach toward truth (as Hunt describes).
In the early years, brand image definitions tended
to focus on the product itself and its functions (cf.
Newman 1957), though there was always a recogni-
tion that some other elements (e.g., advertisements)
were involved in forming images. In the late 1960s
and early 1970s, attitude research became an impor-
tant concern and, correspondingly, image was defined
as "an attitude about a given brand" (Bird, Channon,
and Ehrenberg 1970). However, in the 1970s there
was still a tendency to distinguish between the "func-
tional value" of a good and the "symbolic (or image)
value" (Pohlman and Mudd 1973).
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, as a psycho-
logical approach to marketing continued to dominate,
there was a shift such that brand image was seen as
located entirely inside consumers' minds (cf. Bull-
more 1984; Levy 1978). In the 1980s, the process of
anthropomorphization continued and brands and prod-
ucts were viewed as having personalities, which were
"not determined by the physical characteristics of the
product ... alone" (Sirgy 1985).
In the middle and late 1980s, a brand management
approach became prevalent, and there was an interest
in linking psychological concepts to strategic re-
search. Thus, brand image was seen as a tool for fos-
tering product differentiation (Reynolds and Gutman
1984) or as a major goal of brand management (Park,
Jaworski, and MacInnis 1986). Also, by the time of
the Park definition, functional aspects of the product
84 / Journal of Marketing, April 1992
were seen as a type of image. Contrast this view with
the earlier distinction between functional value and
symbolic value (Pohlman and Mudd 1973). This stra-
tegic direction has continued into the 1990s, such that
brand image is now very close to the concept of brand
equity and attempts are made to fashion appropriate
financial measures to capture the long-term impact of
brand image management.
As shown in Table 1, and as highlighted in the
preceding analysis, a stable, immutable definition of
brand image has not been established. Instead, the
definition evolves as marketing researchers shift their
attention from product functions to attitudes, to per-
sonalities, to brand management. There is not a steady
progression of meaning as time passes, though it may
be possible to identify certain dimensions of image,
such as an emphasis on symbolism or an emphasis on
personification (see Dobni and Zinkhan 1990). How-
ever, through overuse or misuse, the meaning of "brand
image" has become blurred, which may in turn impede
the process of knowledge development in marketing.
The evolution of image definitions seems very remote
from Hunt's description of how marketing science
works (vis a vis truth generation).
Similar foundational problems have been discov-
ered for other key marketing terms such as "market"
(Hyman and Skipper 1991), "store image" (Villan-
ova, Zinkhan, and Hyman 1990), and "corporate im-
age" (Johnson and Zinkhan 1990), though there is
somewhat greater consensus for the last concept. As
those terms evolve, it seems very much as though
marketing researchers are "creating" reality rather than
"discovering" reality. Hunt, however, argues the op-
posite and rejects the notion that scientific researchers
create the phenomena they are studying (p. 3). In-
stead, he sees the "job of science is to ... generate
the most accurate possible description and under-
standing the world" (p. 9). Again, the definitions in
Table 1 seem more to define the popular research par-
adigms of the time than to reflect an increasingly ac-
curate description of the world.
Scientific Realism: An Alternative
View
Scientific realism is proposed as a vehicle for mar-
keting to become a science. Hunt discusses scientific
realism in such a light and points out that there are
many varieties of realism. Here, we discuss a different
version of realism, a version not described by Hunt
and one we feel is more appropriate for describing
marketing phenomena. This version of realism is called
"the realist view of science" (Manicas and Secord 1983)
or "transcendental realism" (Bhaskar 1979). In con-
trast to the standard positivist view, which holds that
science aims to study lawful properties consisting of
 TABLE 1
Definitions of Brand Image
Author and Definition Comments
1. Newman (1957) Emphasis is on the product generating the image,
[AI product is a symbol by virtue of its form, size, though there is also a role for other elements.
color, and functions. . . . Brand images may have
several dimensions: functional, economic, social,
psychological. . . . The limits are set by the brand
image built through styling and advertisements as
well as other product attributes.
2. Bird, Channon, and Ehrenberg (1970) This period represents the height of attitude research
. . . [brand image isl an attitude about a given in marketing. It is now generally believed worthwhile
brand. to distinguish between "attitudes" and "images."
3. Pohlman and Mudd (1973) Note the distinction between functional utility and
The purchased item is conceptualized as having two utility as a prestige symbol. In this respect, there is a
kinds of value for the owner. . . . [Flunctional value direct conflict with definition 8.
is that which is conventionally meant by utility as a
good, while symbolic value (l.e., image) is the
extent to which a purchase enhances the worth of a
person in his own eyes (self-esteem) and in the
eyes of others (status).
4. Levy (1978) In contrast to definition 2, image is now construed to
A brand image is a constellation of pictures and exist more in the consumer's mind than in the product
ideas in people's minds that sums up their itself (though both elements are present in definitions
knowledge of the brand and their main attitudes 1 and 4).
towards it.
5. Bullmore (1984) Again, image has moved to the mind.
. . . The image resides in the mind of the
beholder-and is conditioned at least as much by
the nature of the beholder as by the nature of the
object itself.
6. Reynolds and Gutman (1984) A strategic or brand management flavor is now added
(a) . . . the set of meanings and associations that to the consumer behavior conception of image.
serve to differentiate a product or service from its
competition.
(b) The real key to understanding image lies in un-
derstanding linkages or connections between the
levels that define the perceptual lens through
which the consumer views the world.
7. Sirgy (1985) This is perhaps the most anthropomorphic definition and
Products. . . and services are assumed to have per- the epitome of the psychological approach.
sonality image, just as people do.... These person-
ality images are not determined by the physical char-
acteristics of the product . . . alone.
8. Park, Jaworski, and Macinnis (1986) This is a brand management approach and conflicts with
The image is a perception created by the marketers' definition 3 by identifying functional aspects as image.
management of the brand. Any product (e.g., tooth-
paste) theoretically can be positioned with a func-
tional, symbolic or experiential image. . . .
9. Aaker (1991) Through symbol, brand image is viewed as a component
Brand equity [ls] a set of brand assets and liabilities of brand equity.
linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that add to
or detract from the value provided by a product or
service to a firm and/or to that firm's customers (p.
15)

events and their causes, scientific realism views the ditions that allow access to them" (Bhaskar 1975).
aim of science to be the production of knowledge about Thus, science aims at discovering lawful processes,
"real structures which endure and operate indepen- but the laws are about the causal powers of structures
dently of our knowledge, our experience, and the con- that exist and operate in the world. Under this con-

Truth in Marketing Theory and Research / 85

ception, laws do not describe the patterns of events;
rather, they set limits on the types of action possible.
Causes are found in the natures of things, in their
structural properties that create powers or liabilities
(Zinkhan 1987).
Scientific realism in this context is more than an
ontological stance in that it adopts a particular epis-
temology as well. This version of realism agrees with
Kuhn that knowledge is a social and historical prod-
uct, and thus accepts the inevitability of the herme-
neutical circle. In fact, the hermeneutical circle un-
derlies all of human knowledge. Realism accepts the
hermeneutical circle as nonvicious and inevitable.
Because there can be no reinterpreted given, the
task of science is to invent theories that aim to rep-
resent the world. In that way, science generates its
own rational criteria that determine which theories are
to be accepted or rejected. Crucially, it is possible for
those criteria to be rational precisely because, on real-
ist terms, there is a world that exists independently of
cognizing experience (Manicas and Secord 1983). The
theories that result from the rational criteria may be
wrong-after all, they are based on the known world
rather than the world itself-but, nonetheless, not
anything goes. Again, they are what the community
agrees on and are based on a community standard of
what constitutes "valid" or "believable" knowledge
claims.
It is our knowledge of the world that is circular;
the world itself exists, and we experience perceptions
of that world. The goal of science is to build sophis-
ticated models, using rational criteria, to represent the
world. As already mentioned, the models represent
only what we know of the world and such knowledge
is inherently flawed; but as we build successive models,
we may improve our representation. By making use
of cognitive materials and operating under the control
of something like a logic of analogy or metaphor, we
can postulate a model. We do not believe the model
exactly duplicates the world but, if the model were to
exist and act in the way specified, it would enable us
to account for observed phenomena (Bhaskar 1975).
Nonetheless, models are composed of abstractions and
are untruthful, by definition, because they oversim-
plify. The greater the level of abstraction, the more
this is so because the models move further from em-
pirical phenomena and oversimplify by grouping lower
level abstractions. Hence, an abstract scientific model
cannot be known in the sense that Hunt uses the term
"truth. "
The notion of a generative mechanism is one of
the key concepts in the realist view of science. In brief,
a generative mechanism is a causal principle or ten-
dency rooted in the nature of the relevant entities. For
example, in marketing, we may ask: Why does one
viewer remember a television ad and another viewer
86 / Journal of Marketing, April 1992
forget it? Or, what makes a television commercial
memorable? Here, the generative mechanism is con-
strued to be the structure of memory and the way in-
formation is structured or stored in the human brain.
Alternatively, the structure of television commercials
is a legitimate issue for research in marketing. In both
situations, the marketing researcher attempts to ex-
plain empirical observations through a consideration
of causal powers. In other words, it is the structure
and properties of an entity that, under the appropriate
conditions, give it the power or capacity to act in cer-
tain ways (Secord 1983).
Thus, the scientific realist view provides an ap-
proach to causation that is very effective in describing
(marketing) phenomena that act as enabling or inhib-
iting agents, rather than as primary causes. Consider
a health care marketing project to study the effects of
self-monitoring diaries, biweekly telephone re-
minders, and signed three-month contracts on adher-
ence to preventive medicine regimens (Blair and
Zinkhan 1984). The project was conducted as an ex-
periment' and the three treatment variables are taken
as causes (in the standard language of science). Yet
they really were not conceived as causes in any sense
of making patients adhere to regimens. Rather, the
logic behind the experiment was that patients wanted
to adhere to their regimens, and that their desire was
the generative mechanism producing adherence. The
belief was that decay of the initial message prescrib-
ing the program, the absence of a feedback mecha-
nism measuring adherence, and the unbounded time
over which compliance was requested acted as liabil-
ities to the generative mechanism (in the terminology
of scientific realism). The experimental treatments were
seen as ways to alleviate those liabilities. Thus, the
kinds of explanations offered by scientific realism seem
to match rather well with the problems encountered
in practical marketing research.
Implications for Marketing
There is more than one definition of science and, de-
pending on the definition, marketing mayor may not
be a science. For example, marketing may not be ac-
cepted as a science by the community at large because
it is viewed as advocating industry positions rather than
pursuing knowledge from other perspectives (e.g., the
perspectives of other stakeholder groups such as con-
sumers, employees, or government regulators). As a
result, marketing may not achieve "scientific" status
because of the lack of societal consensus.
However, scientific realism posits another defi-
nition of science that marketing, as a discipline, may
be closer to achieving. As articulated by Toulmin
(1972), each scientific discipline generates its own ra-
tional criteria to determine whether theory will be ac-
cepted or rejected. To the extent that marketers can
agree on those criteria, marketing may be a science.
Nonetheless, we would also like to have something to
show for our efforts in terms of knowledge we have
gained or problems we can solve by applying our ra-
tional scientific rules and criteria.
One research direction that scientific realism sug-
gests involves model building. Under the standard view
of science, the term "model building" can have sev-
eral meanings (Manicas and Secord 1983). Some-
times a model is taken to be a representation of real
mechanisms; other times a model is understood as being
purely mathematical or as being a "convenient fic-
tion" (Achinstein 1969). Various models are com-
pared by their ability to predict. From the realist per-
spective, models are real. They attempt to capture
causal structures and generative mechanisms but, de-
spite being real, they are still out of phase with real-
ity. Importantly, competing models are compared ac-
cording to their ability to explain. These models are
only as good as the theory behind them. As prescribed
by scientific realism, the outputs from models are also
appropriate realms for scientific inquiry as the inves-
tigator proceeds to explain the model and its func-
tioning.
Theory-based model building was popular among
marketers in the 1960s and produced such results as
the Howard-Sheth model (1969). Since that time,
however, interest in such activities has declined, largely
because it is difficult to operationalize and test such
comprehensive models in marketing. Now there seems
to be a predominance of studies examining one-to-one
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