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Volume 5(2): 165184

Copyright 2005 SAGE
www.sagepublications.com
DOI: 10.1177/1470593105052469

articles

The uses of marketing theory: Constructs,

research propositions, and managerial
implications
Joep P. Cornelissen
Leeds University Business School, UK

Andrew R. Lock
Leeds University Business School, UK

Abstract. Although images of the relationship between marketing science and practice have been dominant features of past and contemporary marketing thought,
surprisingly little research has been conducted on the subject, particularly at the level
of the marketing practitioner. This article provides a framework for characterizing
and better understanding the ways in which practitioners value and use academic
theory, and defines a set of propositions for guiding research into this area. The
exercise is intended to urge fellow researchers to refine, test and augment the working
hypotheses suggested herein in order to achieve a better understanding of the ways in
which marketing practitioners attend to, value and use marketing scientific theories.
marketing
Managerial implications of this research are discussed. Key Words
science marketing theory science utilization theory and practice

Introduction
The subject of the relationship between marketing science and practice has a long
standing within marketing, yet throughout marketings history as an academic
area of inquiry its tenets have only marginally been explored (Myers et al., 1979,
1980). Since the mid-1980s, infused by debates on the scientific status of marketing theory (e.g. Bartels, 1983; Peter and Olson, 1983), discussions on the interface
between marketing science and practice have once again resurfaced, attaining a
greater salience than before (e.g. AMA Task Force on the Development of

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Marketing Thought [hereafter AMA Task Force], 1988; Brinberg and Hirschman,
1986; Rossiter, 2001; Wensley, 2002; Varadarajan, 2003). Despite increased
acceptance and relevance, however, it can be argued that the subject has been
vastly under-realized in the marketing literature. The limited work that exists is
largely rhetorical and directed towards either a critique or legitimation of a particular image of the relationship between scientific theorizing on the one hand
(primarily done within universities) and practitioners (i.e. marketing professionals including brand managers, market analysts and researchers) and their
activities on the other (Holbrook, 1985; Jacoby, 1985) as opposed to development
of theory and constructs for researching the ways in which practitioners can actually be guided and informed by marketing scientific endeavour. In a sense, since
the watershed inquiry of the AMA Task Force on the Development of Marketing
Thought (1988) concluded that little attention has been directed to the third
element of the Task Forces [on knowledge development, dissemination and use
in marketing] original assignment: how the marketing discipline utilizes marketing knowledge (AMA Task Force, 1988: 24), the marketing field has moved
on, largely ignoring the sciencepractice interface issues laid bare by these earlier
discussions, and without proper development of the core constructs involved. As
such, as Ratchford recently commented, the field still lacks a theoretical base and
a rigorous empirical study of how and whether our [academic] work influences
practice (Ratchford, 2001: IV).
Particularly lacking are studies from a practitioner perspective, as opposed to
science-centrist accounts of the relevance and dissemination of academic theory
in practice. As a result, the basic questions of whether, why and in what forms
practitioners actually use academic theory remain largely unanswered. Valuable
exceptions from such a practitioner perspective exist (Zaltman, 1997), yet existing
work falls short in this regard. The present article therefore provides a framework
for a better and more comprehensive understanding of the ways in which practitioners value and use academic theories. The intent of the exercise is to develop a
solid conceptual foundation from which marketing-science utilization theory
can be cultivated and research into this area can be guided. Towards this end, the
article reviews prior work on the marketing sciencepractice interface including
the traditional debates on the relationship between science and practice as well
as the innovation diffusion and marketing engineering literatures. The evident
loopholes and limitations of this prior work in creating a rounded understanding
of the ways in which practitioners attend to and value academic theory leads to the
introduction of the rich conceptual vocabulary from the science utilization literature adept to this task. The article then circumscribes the domain of marketing
science utilization generally, and, based on qualitative research with marketing
practitioners, proposes a conceptual framework and propositions to guide
research into this area more specifically. The exercise is intended to urge fellow
researchers to refine, test, and augment the theory-inspired working hypotheses
suggested herein and to progress towards these goals with confidence in the
validity of adopting a practitioner perspective (as opposed to a science-centrist
view) in the domain of the marketing sciencepractice interface.

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Literature review
Informed by debates on the relationship between academia, the conduct of scientific research, and professional fields of practice (National Science Board, 1996),
and fuelled by a number of societal forces (including industry and federal support
for academic research and the assumed importance of science-based knowledge to
the marketing technology and innovation process (Myers et al., 1980), extra
images and representations of the relationship between marketing science and
practice have come to present dominant features of past and contemporary
marketing thought. At its core, the subject concerns questions of academic
identity, captured in the notion of academic versus practitioner orientations to
marketing research (e.g. Brinberg and Hirschman, 1986; Holbrook, 1985; Jacoby,
1985), and of the interests that academic research should serve (e.g. Anderson,
1983; Brinberg and Hirschman, 1986; Brown, 1996). To illustrate, in a series of
papers in the mid-1980s, Holbrook (1985, 1986) argued for a complete abstention
of all kinds of practitioner intervention and mediation in academia, including
applied research and consultancy. Subscribing to the view that scientific development is tied in with an enterprise directed at fundamental understanding per se
rather than understanding for use by managers (Charnes et al., 1985; Kover,
1976), Holbrook (1985) argued that academic and practitioner orientations to
marketing problems are intrinsically distinct and should remain separate (see also
Hirschman, 1986). In contrast, a number of writers including Jacoby (1985) and
Brinberg and Hirschman (1986), while recognizing the general differences in
orientations of academics and practitioners, have argued against a juxtaposing
and hence a strict separation of the academic and practitioner communities. From
the latter perspective, the stock of marketing knowledge is seen to increase
with multiple (academic and practitioner) orientations to marketing research
(Brinberg and Hirschman, 1986) and benefits are also seen to accrue from directly
relating research inquiries to practice such as, for instance, providing anchorage
for abstractions, data and tests for hypotheses, and new understandings that arise
from putting knowledge into practice.
Alluding to and departing from these apparently distinct positions, the marketing literature has ever since diffusely attended to aspects of the relationship
between marketing science and its theoretical products on the one hand and
marketing practice on the other. For example, subscribing to the view that
knowledge is in the first instance constituted differently in the academic and practitioner realms according to varying interests, purposes, conventions and criteria
of adequacy, a growing body of work has emphasized the need for academics to
subsequently act as a technologist or boundary spanner between basic marketing
science and marketing management practice in order to translate basic scientific
findings into operational managerial action (e.g. AMA Task Force, 1988; Gruber
and Niles, 1975; Hunt, 2002; Jacoby, 1985; Wensley, 2002). Yet, the literature on
marketing engineering and marketing modeling (e.g. Ehrenberg, 1995; Lilien et
al., 2002; Lilien and Rangaswamy, 2001; Wierenga, 2002), in contrast, advocates
an image of marketing science as co-opting marketing practice, where academic

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researchers produce methodological theories and models, decision models and

decision support tools that directly facilitate the thinking about and solving of
marketing problems (see also Leeflang and Wittink, 2000; Malhotra, 1996).1 And
yet, another literature, concerning marketing innovation diffusion (Zaltman et al.,
1973), has, while initially being focused on innovations emerging from marketing
industry R&D, also occasionally acknowledged the role of marketing academics in
supplying usable and technically specific knowledge (e.g. Myers et al., 1980) or
more general insights and fashionable rhetoric (Cornelissen and Lock, 2000) to
marketing practitioners.
In reviewing these literatures that have directly or indirectly dealt with the
marketing sciencepractice interface, we observed three key limitations in establishing a rounded understanding of marketing science utilization. First, because
of the fragmented treatment of the subject, which has been discussed across a
number of specific marketing literatures, not a single thorough review of science
utilization within the marketing field appears to exist. Second, the current conceptualization of science utilization within these literatures is incomplete and
biased towards a science-centrist view of knowledge dissemination. Basing our
understanding of science utilization primarily upon a linear model of instrumental use (see Muncy and Eastman, 1998; Zinkhan and Leigh, 1999) or on the application of methodological theories only (without consideration of the possible uses
of substantive marketing theories) as underlies much of the marketing engineering and innovation diffusion literatures, makes for a theoretically impoverished
framework incapable of covering and explaining the full range of ways in which
practitioners can use scientifically produced knowledge. Clearly, utilization is a
complex behavioral process. Conceptual frameworks that fail to reflect this ignore
some parts of the phenomenon (Beyer and Trice, 1982: 595). A science-centrist,
linear view of the relationship between academia and practice is, we argue, also
particularly inept in that it:
1 overlooks the ways in which practitioner knowledge derived from experience
underlies or influences the assessment and use of academic research;
2 offers a static, cross-sectional view of reality that is marginally relevant to the
dynamic and action-oriented settings in which practitioners operate;
3 fails to account for the role of situational constraints, institutional power and
personal values that constitute important aspects of practitioner knowledge;
4 overlooks indirect but broadly important conceptual, educational and political
uses of academic research-based knowledge in favour of narrow instrumental
uses; and
5 ignores the problem of how academic theory and research are translated and
integrated with practitioner-based knowledge in solving problems which vary
from the typical and routine to those that are complex, conflict-ridden and illstructured (Starkey and Madan, 2001; Wagner and Sternberg, 1985).
Therefore, a more expansive understanding of scientific knowledge use, as a less
objectified and linear process of knowledge transfer from knowledge producers
(including scientists) to largely passive knowledge users or receivers, is needed in

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marketing. In fact, instead of talking about target or recipient populations, the

individual marketing practitioners involved are never quite as passive as such
terms imply. On the contrary, following contemporary analyses of the reflective
attitude of practitioners towards scientific theory and research (Cornelissen, 2000,
2002), the present article places the nexus of science use with marketing practitioners who actively assess the relevance of academic knowledge and translate it
into useful insights and actions. Such a conceptualization of marketing science
utilization, as will be outlined below, acknowledges that usefulness or relevance of
scientific knowledge is a pragmatic criterion concerned with the difference it
makes to follow the theorys recommendations . . . Usefulness can be judged in
terms of how effectively a theory enables the user [i.e. practitioner] to get along
in the world or accomplish some task (Peter and Olson, 1983: 121). Third, there
has been little actual empirical research into marketing science utilization
(Brinberg and Hirschman, 1986; Holbrook, 1985), despite the recognized importance of the subject and a proliferating stream of literature on science use in the
adjacent administrative and organization sciences (e.g. Astley and Zammuto,
1992; Beyer and Trice, 1982). Thus, there is a gap between theoretical deliberations on the relevance and use of marketing scientific theories and research, and
descriptive accounts of whether and how marketing practitioners actually use
scientific knowledge.
Therefore, the present article circumscribes the field of marketing science
utilization2 and proposes a specific conceptual framework that may be used on a
predictive basis to guide empirical research into this area. This framework is given
shape by theoretical insights from science utilization theory within the sociology
of knowledge literature, as well as by empirical insights from qualitative research
with marketing practitioners. This qualitative research consisted of three in-depth
interviews with marketing managers of companies in 2001 and 2002, and a
qualitative survey from January to March 2003 with professional members of the
Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in the UK. The in-depth interviews
served to obtain an overview of the issues, motives and experiences on the side of
practitioners in their use of marketing theory. The qualitative survey, following up
on the findings of the interviews, consisted of an on-line questionnaire with a
wider reach and featured open questions on whether and how practitioners use
scientific marketing theories. CIM members were asked to participate, as they
generally have received some education or professional training in marketing, and
were therefore able to comment technically upon aspects of marketing theory, at
least in terms of its uses in their own organizations. The survey consisted of questions regarding the type of marketing theories (see below for a characterization of
different theories) that practitioners used, asking them to elaborate upon specific
situations in which these were used. In all, 96 on-line survey questionnaires were
completed.
The results of the survey and the qualitative interviews will hereafter be used to
inform our conceptual framework of marketing-science utilization. The conceptual framework, including the constructs and relationships specified within it,
is developed following the conventional way of conceptualizing and operational-

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izing constructs (Churchill, 1979), although by sourcing insights emerging from

both small-scale qualitative studies we wanted to inform and ground the framework, and provide some initial ecological validity for it.

Circumscribing marketing science utilization

The preceding section has established that prior work has commented upon and
alluded to the importance of science utilization as an important feature of the
marketing sciencepractice interface (AMA Task Force, 1988), but that little if any
studies have explicitly examined the issue (Cornelissen and Lock, 2002;
Grnhaug, 2002; Rossiter, 2001). An exception is Myers et al. (1979, see also
Myers et al., 1980) who explored the influence of innovations, as emerging from
both academia and industry, upon marketing practice. In their study, Myers et al.
(1979: 25) assessed that much innovation, particularly as perceived by academics,
never reaches line managers, and in retrospect, has contributed little to improvements in marketing management practice, but equally maintained that basic
scientific research may impact upon practice in an indirect manner in providing
insights and ideas to practitioners (Myers et al., 1979: 26). These initial assessments clearly suggest the need for a full-scale and systematic attempt at deciphering and examining the various ways in which marketing science can influence
practice. To this end, we first circumscribe the concept of science utilization by
explicating the constructs of marketing science; in other words, the types of
knowledge generated by marketing research and as contained in scientific
theories, and utilization; in other words, the various ways in which practitioners
can use scientific knowledge. Both these constructs will subsequently feature in
the integrative framework of marketing science utilization developed in the next
section as well as the research propositions.

Scientific marketing theories

Prior research in the marketing field has already started to articulate a typology of
theories on the basis of their possible effects upon and relevance to practice
(Charnes et al., 1985; Myers et al., 1979), and this preliminary work will be added
to here by contemporary insights from the science utilization literature. Myers et
al. (1979) distinguished between context-specific and context-free knowledge in
marketing, where context-specific knowledge is strictly applied in nature as it is
specific to a particular firm or industry or specific to a particular managerial
problem or situation (Myers et al., 1979: 21) and aims to improve a specific business decision. Context-free knowledge involves what is conventionally known as
scientific or academic theories and can, following the science utilization literature,
be further specified as either substantive or methodological. Substantive theories
typically contain declarative knowledge: factual or conceptual knowledge about
marketing phenomena, objects and events, and their relationships (Ehrenberg,
1995; Rossiter, 2001, 2002). Methodological theories are premised on procedural

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knowledge: knowledge representations that encode how to achieve a particular

marketing result (cf. Anderson, 1993). A further contrast between substantive and
methodological theories, corresponding with Charnes et al.s (1985) distinction
between theories aimed at and founded on understanding, not necessarily in
implementable form, and understanding for use, is between problem solving and
research which is carried out following the codes of practice relevant to a particular academic discipline (mode 1), and problem solving which is primarily
organized around a particular application (mode 2). Both these modes of research
and the theorizing and knowledge involved comprise empirical and theoretical
components and are therefore undeniably contributions to knowledge, though
mode 2 knowledge generated and sustained through the use of a methodological theory in the context of application is not necessarily of a disciplinary kind
(Gibbons et al., 1994).
While both methodological theories (e.g. marketing engineering modelling
leading to particular marketing applications) and substantive theories (e.g.
general theories of advertising effects) thus serve the purposes of science and contribute to the general body of knowledge, the different type of knowledge that
each produces has unsettled the field of science utilization, and their parameters
therefore also need to be further specified within the context of research on
marketing science utilization. To this end, the construct of substantive theory is
further sub-divided in (1) discipline-based theories that are formal in nature,
often including a systematically related set of statements including some law-like
generalizations (Hunt, 1991: 4), and (2) conceptual devices, which do not (yet)
count as formal theories and can instead be referred to as precursors to theory,
such as analytical categorizations and generalizations, classification schemes and
typologies, and metaphors (Ehrenberg, 1995; Rossiter, 2001, 2002). Examples of
the former include demand and utility theory, image and attitude theory, theories
of advertising effects, sociological theories of consumption, and expectancy value
theory (see Myers et al., 1979: 24), while examples of the latter include the
marketing mix, relationship marketing, integrated marketing communications,
the brand management system, and segmentation strategies (cf. Rossiter, 2001).
Methodological theories can be sub-divided into (1) models and methods of
assembling and treating marketing data (Charnes et al., 1985; Ratchford, 2001;
Yale and Gilly, 1998) that are mathematically based and often decision and/or
optimization oriented (Myers et al., 1980: 59; Wierenga, 2002), and (2) research
methods and techniques of statistical sampling and inference of data sets.
Examples of the former include market share models, media planning models,
stochastic models of brand choice, and multi-dimensional scaling and attitude
measurement (Lilien and Rangaswamy, 2001), while examples of the latter
include motivation research and projective techniques, experimental and panel
designs (ANOVA) and conjoint analysis (Green et al., 2001). Drawing upon the
science utilization literature, it can subsequently be hypothesized that these
different types of theories are deemed relevant and put to use by marketing
practitioners for different purposes. The following part of this section outlines the
different ways in which practitioners can use scientific theories and the knowledge

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Table 1
Overview of constructs
Construct

Definition

Selected references

Discipline-based, formal theory

containing declarative knowledge
that includes some law-like
generalizations

Hunt (1991)

2 Substantive conceptual
devices

Precursors to formal theory

involving declarative knowledge
that is captured in analytical
categorizations, typologies and
metaphors

Day and Montgomery

(1999), Rossiter
(2001)

3 Methodological models

Models and methods involving

procedural knowledge for problem
solving and marketing action

Myers et al. (1979),

Charnes et al. (1985)

4 Methodological methods

Research methods and techniques

involving procedural knowledge for
statistical sampling and inference of
marketing data sets

Myers et al. (1979),

Charnes et al. (1985)

Direct, instrumental use of scientific

theory and research for problem
solving

Pelz (1978), Beyer and

Trice (1982), Menon
and Varadarajan (1992)

2 Conceptual use

Indirect use of scientific theory and

research for general enlightenment

Pelz (1978), Beyer and

Trice (1982), Menon
and Varadarajan (1992)

3 Symbolic use

Use of terms and vocabulary from

Pelz (1978), Beyer and
scientific theory and research to
Trice (1982), Menon
legitimize and sustain predetermined and Varadarajan (1992)
positions or actions

Marketing scientific theories

1 Substantive formal theory

Modes of science use

1 Instrumental use

that they contain, followed by an integrative conceptual framework (in the

following section) that links the constructs of scientific theory and science use into
a set of propositions to guide research into this area.

Modes of science utilization

Early studies in the science utilization literature which described models and
metaphors for knowledge use were prefaced with the complaint that social science
knowledge is under-utilized or ignored by public decision makers and managers
(e.g. Weiss, 1977; Weiss and Bucuvalas, 1980). In a reiterating sense, commen-

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taries within the marketing field have lamented the little instrumental use coming
forth out of scientific theorizing and research (Myers et al., 1979, 1980); and then
refuted this complaint to one degree or another, suggesting that although the
direct application of a particular theory or studys findings might be rare, marketing managers may use the insights and results of theory and research either as part
of their general store of knowledge (e.g. Cornelissen and Lock, 2002; Myers et al.,
1979) or as among many elements in the recipe for a particular situation or
circumstance leading to a decision (e.g. Brownlie and Saren, 1997; Zaltman,
1997). Accordingly, a conceptualization of science use should be broader and
more expansive than an instrumental mode of science use alone can account for.
Drawing upon the science utilization literature, three types of uses are therefore
distinguished: instrumental, conceptual and symbolic (e.g. Beyer and Trice, 1982;
Boggs, 1992; Landry et al., 2001; Pelz, 1978). Instrumental use involves acting on
theoretical accounts in specific, direct ways, where academic theory and research
are seen to provide rational solutions to managerial problems in a direct and
instrumental way (see Weiss, 1977). Conceptual use involves using theory for
general enlightenment; theory influences actions, but in less specific, more
indirect ways than in instrumental use. In the conceptual mode of science utilization (see Rich, 1997), academic theory offers ideas, problem definitions, and
interpretative schemes as a set of intellectual tools available to practitioners in
understanding and anticipating real-world phenomena. Symbolic use involves
using theories for their symbolic or rhetorical value to legitimize and sustain predetermined positions or actions. Table 1 summarizes these three modes of science
use alongside the four types of scientific marketing theory as outlined earlier.

An integrative framework of marketing science use

The present section develops an integrative framework of constructs and research
propositions on the subject of marketing science utilization. Essentially, the
framework draws upon the construct specification of marketing science and
science utilization outlined above, and is as mentioned supplemented with findings from qualitative research with marketing managers. In all, the framework
provides a template for research by developing a theoretically well-founded conceptual framework that identifies key dependent and independent variables whose
relationship can be tested. In particular, the framework posits theory use as a
dependent variable of theory type; and as further moderated by factors concerning the fit of theories with practice.

Research propositions
Figure 1 comprises a number of constructs and two sets of relationships between
them. The first set of relationships concerns the antecedent conditions that foster
or discourage marketing theory use; the second set of relationships refers to the
moderator factors that either strengthen or weaken the relationship between

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ANTECEDENTS

MODERATORS

Type of theory
1. formal theories
2. conceptual devices
3. methodological models
4. methodological methods

THEORY USE
Marketing theory use
1. instrumental use
2. conceptual use
3. symbolic use

Moderators
1. operational quality
2. goal relevance
3. descriptive relevance
4. timeliness
Figure 1
Marketing theory use and the factors affecting it

the antecedent conditions and marketing theory use. We discuss each of these
relationships and develop propositions based on the literature and the survey
findings.
Antecedents to marketing theory use Antecedents to marketing theory use include
those factors that enhance or impede the degree and type of use of marketing
theory. Our examination of the literature and the insights from the survey reveal
one set of factors on the supply side concerning the provision of different types of
marketing theories. We have labelled these antecedent factors under the heading
of type of theory.
Type of theory Following results of science utilization studies indicating the little
instrumental use of scientific theory and research (Beyer and Trice, 1982; Weiss,
1977; Weiss and Bucuvalas, 1980), commentaries of marketing academics (e.g.
Brinberg and Hirschman, 1986; Cornelissen and Lock, 2002; Myers et al., 1979,
1980; Varadarajan, 2003; Zinkhan, 1994) have equally suggested that direct and
instrumental use of substantive theory is rare within the marketing field. A suggested explanation for this break-down is the objective of substantive theorizing
to acquire theoretical meaning by sacrificing a detailed description and analysis of
the features of the phenomenon in case in order to illustrate the relations among
concepts (rather than to provide a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon). Such substantive theory, pitched at a high level of abstraction and
generality is therefore not directly relevant to concrete managerial situations
and its protocols lack flexibility to be easily converted into application-specific
form. As Zinkhan (1994) and Varadarajan (2003) amongst others have already
suggested, abstract substantive theories and the detailed empirical tests accompanying them are unlikely to command the attention of practitioners because

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they typically bear little resemblance to the everyday context in which managers
operate. One marketing manager in our qualitative study commented on this
point:
I remember sitting in class [MBA marketing communications class] once, listening to the
different theories of advertising effects being outlined. I knew that this was something that I
wouldnt use in my own company, although the general psychological background to them was
interesting.

Methodological theories, in contrast, through the largely procedural and operational knowledge that they contain can, following Anderson (1983), be used in an
instrumental and direct manner as a solution to a marketing problem. The results
of the qualitative interviews and survey generated very little to either confirm
or disconfirm this point, but we nonetheless suggest that methodological theories
such as conjoint analysis and product forecasting models (Steckel and Brody,
2001: 333) are operation-specific enough to be applied in a direct manner to a
specific class of marketing problems. The following propositions can therefore be
distinguished:
P1: Instrumental science use by practitioners is related negatively to substantive formal theory.
P2: Instrumental science use by practitioners is related negatively to substantive conceptual
devices.
P3: Instrumental science use by practitioners is related positively to methodological model
theory.
P4: Instrumental science use by practitioners is related positively to methodological methods
theory.

The mentioned explanation for the shortfall of substantive theory to be used

instrumentally is that the theorizing enterprise is relatively detached from the
situational contingencies of the everyday world of marketing practitioners, with
substantive theories within marketing research being typically formulated at such
a high level of generality that they are not readily translated into operational form.
These stylized accounts, while ignoring the particularities and complexities of the
everyday setting of practitioners, can however, as the present article argues, be
seen to have an impact through a conceptual mode of science utilization.
Conceptual devices, as precursors of formal substantive theory, in particular, offer
considerable scope for conceptual use within practitioner settings (Astley and
Zammuto, 1992), because they give great latitude to practitioners in selecting,
redefining, altering, combining and generally reinterpreting substantive theory
and the declarative knowledge that it contains to fit a wide variety of circumstances and purposes. The findings of the survey and interviews equally indicated
that conceptual use has the greatest currency with practitioners, rather than
instrumental or symbolic use, and that conceptual devices such as the SWOTanalysis, Product-Life-Cycle, and the marketing mix in particular were used
conceptually rather than formal theories or research methods. To illustrate, one of
the interviewed managers reflected in the following way upon his use of conceptual devices and frameworks:

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. . . the type of marketing knowledge that we use here the most is segmentation thinking. The
concepts of demographics and psychographics help me to think about the target market for our
products, and describe it.

Here, the following propositions can be distinguished:

P5: Conceptual science use by practitioners is related positively to substantive formal theory.
P6: Conceptual science use by practitioners is related positively to substantive conceptual
devices.

Despite their operational and instrumental merit, methodological theories have

come under some criticism from marketing practitioners (e.g. Bogart, 1986;
Eighmey, 1988; Greyser, 1978) for their sophisticated rule-based logic and procedures that are seen to offer such a strict problem-solving approach that it
hampers and limits practitioner creativity, intuition and experience when thinking about a marketing problem. Equally, results from our qualitative survey and
interviews indicated a general reluctance of practitioners to use formal models
or methodologies that prescribe certain patterns of actions without explicitly
accounting for the particularities of business situations. Methodological theories
have indeed less conceptual leeway and interpretive viability than purely conceptual devices. However, we suggest that the procedural knowledge of methodological theories can, while in the first instance being displayed in operational
application, also provide an analytical framework or device that adds to the
repository of practitioner thought upon a marketing subject. To support this
proposition, already in 1970, Little argued that his decision calculus a modelbased set of procedures for processing data and judgments (Little, 1970: B470)
has besides its direct and instrumental operational convenience or use through
application, also a general enlightening or contribution to learning function,
where the decision calculus is user-instructing in outlining a set of systematic
steps that raises consciousness and introduces a person to the issues of the
problem (Little, 1970: B471). Equally, Steckel and Brody (2001: 333) recently
argued that aside from direct diffusion where models are being implemented in
original form, methodological theories such as the ADCAD expert system for
advertising design (Burke et al., 1990) might also have an impact upon practice in
a more indirect manner involving the use of ideas or principles implicit in the
building or application of these models:
P7: Conceptual science use by practitioners is related positively to methodological model
theory.
P8: Conceptual science use by practitioners is related positively to methodological methods
theory.

From the perspective of symbolic use of scientific marketing theory, the relevance
and hence utility of a concept or term lies in its effect of either legitimizing or
producing action in practice, and of evoking an appearance of the manager as
acting in a rational and progressive manner (e.g. Abrahamson, 1991, 1996). As
Eccles and Nohria have documented, from such a perspective, labels and concepts
derived from scientific theory are used by managers as they see fit as part of their

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ongoing use of language to coax, inspire, demand, or otherwise produce action in

their organizations (1992: 29). A growing body of work within the management
field has documented such fashionable and symbolic uses of concepts by
managers to rationalize and legitimize strategies and bring about change (e.g.
Barley and Kunda, 1992; Boden, 1994; Pondy et al., 1983), and the tenets of this
work have recently found their way into the marketing literature (e.g. Brownlie
and Saren, 1997; Cornelissen and Lock, 2000). Brownlie and Saren (1997), for
instance, have drawn attention to practitioner uses of rhetorics, inspired and
derived from scientific concepts and terms, to lend authority and persuasion to
accounts of marketing management:
. . . marketing managers are typically very adept at using this conceptual vocabulary to provide
interviewers with persuasive accounts of their activity as marketing managers . . . They can talk
of the company being marketing-led when they assume the audience they are addressing needs
to hear that story and will, just like a marketing academic, employ language and concepts in a
strategic way to achieve certain effects, or ends (Brownlie and Saren, 1997: 151)

One of the interviewed marketing managers commented to this effect:

. . . the business [that] were in requires constant monitoring and a drive for results. So, yes, I
do think that we sometimes use models in a symbolic way to convince senior managers that we
are delivering real financial results and worth every penny of investment. Linking marketing
models with financial models is I think particularly useful for this.
P9: Symbolic science use by practitioners is related positively to substantive formal theory.
P10: Symbolic science use by practitioners is related positively to substantive conceptual
devices.

Because of their operational basis and purpose for use as well as the low variety,
unequivocal language employed in its description (see Daft and Wiginton, 1979),
we suggest that methodological theories hardly lend themselves to symbolic use.
Little, for instance, reflecting upon the issue of whether a model can be used by a
manager in a partisan way, in other words, symbolically, to advocate a particular
position, concluded that it appears [that] the use of models may temper this
partisanship because assumptions and data are explicit and subject to examination and relatively easy consideration of alternatives (1970: B4812). The survey
findings equally suggest that research methods are used in a symbolic manner to
a considerably lesser extent than conceptual devices. Assuming that there is
indeed little conceptual knowledge or terminology within methodological theories that can be used in a rhetorical and symbolic manner to support political
motives of practitioners in legitimizing or bringing about change, the following
propositions can be distinguished:
P11: Symbolic science use by practitioners is related negatively to methodological model theory.
P12: Symbolic science use by practitioners is related negatively to methodological methods
theory.

Moderators With a few exceptions, writings in the literature tend to view

marketing theory use as primarily dependent upon the types of theories furnished

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to practitioners (Beyer and Trice, 1982; Cornelissen and Lock, 2002). In contrast,
the survey and the qualitative interviews elicited further conditions or contingencies under which the impact of the types of theory upon marketing theory use
varies. That is, the survey and interviews suggest that certain contingencies
moderate (i.e. increase or decrease) the strength of the relationship between
theory type and utilization. In the following discussion, we consider four such
contingencies or moderator variables concerning the fit between a particular
theory and practice; as seen from the practitioners perspective. The first factor
involves the operational quality of the theory in question and refers to the
ability of the theory to provide concrete and actionable action implications, for
instance, as practitioners may be able to manipulate a theorys causal variables.
Formal theories and conceptual devices, as well as methodological theories may
have this operational quality, which further stimulates and moderates the degree
to which a particular theory is used. The following quote from one of the respondents in the survey illustrates this concern with the operational quality of a
theory: it needs to be clear what a theory does . . . otherwise it is just academic or
philosophical.
A second moderator factor is goal relevance; the correspondence of outcome
variables in a theory to factors and issues that practitioners wish to influence.
When the goal relevance of a theory is higher, the extent of its use is likely to be
higher, and usage then also tends to be more instrumental and conceptual than
symbolic. Both these factors thus moderate the extent and type of marketing
theory use:
P13: the greater the operational quality of a theory, the stronger the relationship between
theory type and theory use.
P14: the greater the goal relevance of a theory, the stronger the relationship between theory type
and theory use.

The third moderating factor is labelled descriptive relevance and refers to the
accuracy by which phenomena encountered by practitioners in organizational
settings are captured in a certain theory. The greater the descriptive relevance of
a theory, the greater its use, and usage will also be more instrumental and conceptual rather than symbolic. One of the interviewed managers remarked here: I
am still waiting for the theory of everything in marketing; which makes all the
decisions for me and makes me avoid making mistakes.
And, finally, the fourth moderator involves timeliness: the availability of a
theory to practitioners in time for them to deal with marketing problems:
P15: the greater the descriptive relevance of a theory to practitioners, the stronger the relationship between theory type and theory use.
P16: the greater the timeliness of a theory to practitioners, the stronger the relationship
between theory type and theory use.

It is important to note at this point that there may well be further moderators, or
indeed contextual variables such as the general attitude of practitioners towards
academia and towards the provision of theories, and the education in marketing

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enjoyed by them. These and other factors may emerge as important factors affecting the use of marketing theories, yet they did not emerge from our review of the
literature and the qualitative research conducted.

Discussion
Managerial implications
Our framework and propositions not only suggest viable research pathways (see
below), but also have direct managerial implications. First, our framework
suggests that the use of marketing theory is a complex and multifaceted process,
and ultimately depends upon practical assessments by practitioners concerning
the currency, timeliness and relevance of a certain theory for a practical marketing problem or situation. In other words, rather than seeing all theory and theory
use necessarily as a good thing, practitioners may follow the tenets suggested herein to judge for themselves whether usage of a certain theory is desirable and/or
helpful to them. Second, the framework clearly delineates the factors that can be
expected to foster or discourage marketing theory use. Some of these factors may
be accounted for by practitioners themselves in order to increase (or decrease)
marketing theory use within their organizations. Overall, our framework gives
practitioners a comprehensive view of ways in which theories can be used and the
factors affecting it.

Research agenda
This study underscores the critical importance of systematically exploring and
understanding the ways in which marketing practitioners use scientific theories.
Far from considering all scientific theory as largely irrelevant to managerial concerns or claiming that methodological theories built around applications will
increasingly dominate in science use over disciplinary-based substantive theories
(Gibbons et al., 1994), different types of substantive and methodological theories
are suggested to have an impact upon marketing practice in both direct instrumental and more indirect and diffuse ways. In doing so, the article has provided a
more holistic and balanced view, which emphasizes the possibilities and purposes
of use and the range of substantive and methodological scientific theories that
lend themselves to various forms of science use.
In moving forward with the goal of developing and grounding research into
marketing-science utilization, a further specification of methods is needed.
Drawing upon science utilization theory and research (e.g. Rich, 1997), a variety
of approaches for measuring relevance and use can be considered, yet one particular method that might advance our understanding of the subject as outlined
in the conceptual framework of this study is considered here. A participative
observation method is suggested as it offers the potential to investigate the use of
specific science-derived marketing concepts and vocabulary used by marketing
practitioners in situ, as such avoiding the potential pitfalls of surveys and self-

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report techniques, where practitioners own accounts of science use might be

considerably biased (through giving socially desirable accounts as well as through
limitations in their ability to recollect and identify how discrete parts of scientific
theories and knowledge influenced their thinking, behavior and language use).
Hence, rather than documenting such espoused theories or accounts of practitioners (Argyris and Schn, 1974) through survey and self-report techniques,
participative observation allows researchers to capture theories-in-use of practitioners their own accounts, often implicit in the norms, strategies and assumptions guiding them, of solutions to specific marketing problems, viable actions
and task performances (see Cornelissen, 2002) and to identify what type of
scientific knowledge practitioners have acquired and used in relation to particular
situations and marketing problems, as well as to explore the factors that account
for types of use and non-use of academic knowledge. One methodological
problem with such a participative observation method, however, that needs to be
addressed a priori is to determine whether the concept or term used in practice
originated in scientific theory or rather has been derived from the practice itself.
That is, because the process by which practitioners absorb understandings of this
sort may be subtle and indirect (and might have a delayed and diffused impact),
it is paramount to establish the genealogy of a marketing concept (e.g. Jones and
Monieson, 1990) so that it can properly be identified whether the concept and
knowledge that influenced practitioners is science-based or rather originated from
practice (Whyte, 1986: 557).

Concluding comments
This study was executed with the objective of stimulating novel and rich ideas and
research pathways concerning the important yet under-conceptualized subject
of science utilization in marketing. The discussion and arguments presented
establish the relevance and validity of adopting a practitioner perspective when
studying practitioner uses of scientific theories and provide a preliminary framework and set of propositions for the execution, refinement and extension of this
task. The study has implications for both marketing academics and practitioners
with an interest in considering and knowing how scientific theory might impact
upon practice. Ultimately, such thought and inquiry depends upon more detailed
empirical research, and the conceptual framework suggested here outlines how
such research might systematically be carried out.

Acknowledgments
We appreciate the support for our research from the Chartered Institute of Marketing
(UK), and the helpful comments from the editor and three reviewers on an earlier
version of this article.

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Notes
1 Notably, however, the existing body of work on marketing engineering rarely
involves the translation of substantive marketing theory into technological applications and is primarily concerned with the application of methodological theories of
statistical inference of data sets and methods of assembling and treating marketing
data in a professional setting (see Charnes et al., 1985).
2 Our focus here is on marketing science utilization, and the relationship between
academia and practice, and not on the process by which scientific theories in
marketing are developed, either with or without the input from practitioners (for the
latter, see for instance, Holbrook, 1986; Hubbard and Lindsay, 2002; Myers et al.,
1979; Wierenga, 2002).

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Joep Cornelissen is a senior lecturer in Corporate Communications at the Leeds
University Business School. His current research concerns the use of metaphor in
marketing and organization theory. His published work has appeared inter alia in the
Academy of Management Review, British Journal of Management, Organization Studies,
Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Advertising Research and Marketing Theory. Address:
Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building, University of Leeds, LS2
9JT, UK. [email: jpc@lubs.leeds.ac.uk]
Andrew Lock is Dean and Professor of Marketing at the Leeds University Business
School. His current research interests are in political marketing and political communications, and the relationship between academic theorizing and marketing practice. His
published work has appeared inter alia in the Journal of Advertising Research, European
Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, and the International Journal of
Advertising. Address: Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building,
University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. [email: arl@lubs.leeds.ac.uk]

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