Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The power relationships of brand managers

  • Published:
Marketing Letters Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study tests the strategic contingencies theory of power among consumer and industrial brand managers, along with an extension to the theory that hypothesizes interactions between the control of contingencies and environmental factors. Data were collected through a national mail survey of brand managers. Strategic contingencies theory is supported, with clear results that the centrality of a department, its amount of financial control, communication with the brand manager, and its total control of contingencies are positively associated with departmental power. We find modest support for the hypothesis that environment moderates the effects of strategic contingencies on power.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Achrol, Ravis S. and Louis W. Stern. (1988). “Environmental Determinants of Decision-Making Uncertainty in Marketing Channels,”Journal of Marketing Research 25 (February), 36–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aiken, Leona S. and Stephen G. West. (1991).Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cummings, Wm. Theodore, Donald W. Jackson, Jr., and Lonnie L. Ostrom. (1984). “Differences Between Industrial and Consumer Product Managers,”Industrial Marketing Management 13, 71–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eckles, Robert W. and Timothy J. Novotny. (1984). “Industrial Product Managers: Authority and Responsibility,”Industrial Marketing Management 13, 71–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emerson, Richard E. (1962). “Power-Dependence Relations.”American Sociological Review 27, 31–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • French, John R. and Bertram Raven. (1959). “The Bases of Social Power.” In D. Cartwright (ed.),Studies in Social Power (pp. 150–167). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaski, John F. (1986). “Interrelationships Among a Channel Entity's Power Sources: Impact of the Exercise of Reward and Coercion on Expert, Referent, and Legitimate Power Sources,”Journal of Marketing Research 23 (February), 62–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaski, John F., and John R. Nevin. (1985). “The Differential Effects of Exercised and Unexercised Power Sources in a Marketing Channel,”Journal of Marketing Research 22 (May), 130–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gemmill, Gary R. and David L. Wilemon. (1972). “The Product Manager as an Influence Agent,”Journal of Marketing 35 (January), 26–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giese, Thomas D. and T. M. Weisenberger. (1982). “Product Manager in Perspective,”Journal of Business Research 10, 267–277.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta, Ashok K., S. P. Raj, and David Wilemon. (1986). “A Model for Studying R&D-Marketing Interface in the Product Innovation Process,”Journal of Marketing 50 (April), 7–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickson, D. J., et al. (1971). “A Strategic Contingencies' Theory of Intraorganizational Power,”Administrative Science Quarterly 16 (2), 216–229.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luck, David J. (1969). “Interfaces of a Product Manager,”Journal of Marketing 33 (October), 32–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nunnally, Jum C. (1967).Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perrow, Charles. (1970). “Departmental Power and Perspectives in Industrial Firms.” In J. G. March (ed.),Power in Organizations (pp. 59–89). Nashville: Vanderbilt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfeffer, Jeffrey. (1992). “Understanding Power in Organizations.”California Management Review (Winter), 29–50.

  • Pfeffer, Jeffrey and Gerald R. Salancik. (1974). “Organizational Decision Making as a Political Process: The Case of a University Budget,”Administrative Science Quarterly 19, 135–151.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruekert, Robert W. and Orville C. Walker, Jr. (1987). “Marketing's Interaction with Other Functional Units: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence,”Journal of Marketing 51 (January), 1–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salancik, Gerald R. and Jeffrey Pfeffer. (1977). “Who Gets Power and How They Hold on to It: A Strategic-Contingency Model of Power.”Organizational Dynamics (Winter), 3–21.

  • Saunders, Carol Stoak. (1990). “The Strategic Contingencies Theory of Power: Multiple Perspectives,”Journal of Management Studies 27(1), 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, James D. (1967).Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeithaml, Valarie A., P. Rajan Varadarajan, and Carl P. Zeithaml. (1988). “The Contingency Approach: Its Foundations and Relevance to Theory Building and Research in Marketing,”European Journal of Marketing 22(7), 37–64.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marketing Department, Kenan-Flagler Business School, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carroll Hall, Campus Box 3490, 27599-3490, Chapel Hill, NC

    Richard G. Starr Jr.

  2. Kenan-Flagler Business School, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carroll Hall, Campus Box 3490, 27599-3490, Chapel Hill, NC

    Paul N. Bloom (Professor of Marketing)

Authors
  1. Richard G. Starr Jr.
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Paul N. Bloom
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Starr, R.G., Bloom, P.N. The power relationships of brand managers. Marketing Letters 5, 211–223 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993900

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993900

Key words

Search

Navigation