Abstract
The authors review Peter Drucker’s contributions to marketing theory and practice. A bibliometric analysis of Drucker’s academic influence in marketing is presented. The five main tenets that are derived from the bibliometric study are expanded upon as follows: (1) The Marketing Concept: Creating Value for Customers; (2) Broadened Role of Marketing in Society: Corporate Social Responsibility, Consumerism, Social Marketing, and Lessons from Non-Profit Organizations; (3) Contributions to Marketing Strategy: The Obvious and Not So Obvious; (4) Marketing-Innovation Interface: New Product Development; (5) Future of Globalization: Rise of Non-National Enterprises.
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Notes
Drucker even provided the railroad myopia observation that made Levitt famous: “[I]t is the business of a railroad to provide transportation…even the development of competing forms of transportation, such as air services, waterways, and highway transportation, would contribute directly to the economic performance and profitability of the railroad” (Drucker 1949, p.205). Levitt (1975) himself admitted that marketing myopia was not a new idea and that he was heavily influenced by Drucker (1946; 1954) in developing his manifesto.
The term ‘ego-centered analysis’ is drawn originally from techniques in sociology and anthropology for studying social networks and is not meant to imply egocentrism or egocentricity on the part of the focal author.
Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, Advances in Consumer Research, Marketing Science, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, and Industrial Marketing Management.
Examples include an author’s: total number of articles, total number of citations, average value of citations per article, number of ‘significant’ articles—those with more than an arbitrary number of citations, number of citations to each of the most cited articles, total number of electronic downloads, and, recommended reading in doctoral seminars.
We attribute a Drucker citation to either the sole author or the first author of an article.
Not surprisingly, this position has caused substantial stir among ethics scholars. Some 30% of citations to Drucker are in articles on business ethics. However, whether business ethics deserves to be a distinct discipline is beyond the scope of our investigation.
For example, the journal in which Drucker’s work is cited the most is Long Range Planning.
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Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the research assistance provided by Yiannis Kouropalatis, Kate Snowden, and Erica Swain (Cardiff University), Jacob High (Drucker Institute Research Library), and useful comments by Joseph Maciariello (Claremont Graduate University), Jenny Darroch, and anonymous reviewers.
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Uslay, C., Morgan, R.E. & Sheth, J.N. Peter Drucker on marketing: an exploration of five tenets. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 37, 47–60 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-008-0099-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-008-0099-8