Ritu Mehta - Researching Marketing Decisions: The Indian Context

This book looks at customer value creation through marketing decisions and analyses the critical phases of theoretical and methodological advancements in solving certain problems and customer-centric issues that firms face. The chapters highlight how theories have been borrowed from sociology, psychology and economics to understand phenomena such as customer preferences and decision-making, and how operations research and statistical tools have been applied to take optimal decisions on marketing-related issues such as channel management and pricing.

The volume covers an array of topics including marketing orientation, consumer behaviour and marketing mix comprising the elements of product, price, promotion and place. The chapters offer both methodological and theoretical contributions, and also discuss some key results of implementation of marketing strategies by various firms.

This book will be of interest to researchers and students of marketing, consumer behaviour, business management, economics, finance, international marketing, services marketing and international business.

Ritu Mehta is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India. She obtained her PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. She has a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from L.D. College of Engineering, Gujarat University and MBA in Marketing from Nirma Universitys Institute of Management. Previously, she worked in consumer packaged-goods companies in diverse sales and marketing roles. Her research interests include retailing, consumer behaviour, sales promotions, green marketing, and the role of gender in consumption and decision-making. Her research has been published in the Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, and Decision. She has consulted with government and private organisations, and has presented her work at leading international conferences. She has also developed several teaching cases and her teaching interests include marketing research, pricing and services marketing.

General Editors: R. Rajesh Babu

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

and

Manisha Chakrabarty

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

The Advances in Management Research cluster, a joint initiative of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and Routledge, brings select issues and developments in management research and practice into the public domain. Thematically arranged volumes in this cluster will further insights on innovative research and cover crucial aspects ranging across management disciplines.

The books will be of great interest to management students and researchers of international business and management studies, organ-isational learning, operational management, technology adoption, financial integration and other related fields.

Information Systems

Debates, Applications and Impacts

Edited by Priya Seetharaman and Jocelyn Cranefield

Researching Marketing Decisions

The Indian Context

Edited by Ritu Mehta

First published 2019

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2019 selection and editorial matter, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Ritu Mehta to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mehta, Ritu, editor.

Title: Researching marketing decisions : the Indian context /

edited by Ritu Mehta.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,

2019. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018055958 | ISBN 9781138061927 (hardcover :

alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429203558 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: MarketingIndia. | MarketingIndiaManagement. |

Marketing researchIndia.

Classification: LCC HF5415.12.I5 R47 2019 | DDC 658.800954dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018055958

ISBN: 978-1-138-06192-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-20355-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

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We live in an era in which markets and marketing increasingly define locations of profit and non-profit organisations, social initiatives, governments and individuals. As the neoliberal zeitgeist prevails, marketing is not just means to something else outside our notions of being but constitutes the very notion of self. It creates subject positions that are not only profit-oriented but are expected to be active, entrepreneurial and prudential. The current zeitgeist does not completely remove other imaginations of subject positions, and we continue to be located in several other worlds that include the domestic and civic worlds. However, cohabitation in different worlds is influenced in several significant ways by the market world. The dominance of the market world over the other modes of worth and justification has led to newer narratives of morality, code of conduct, normative framework, cohesion, status hierarchies, and sources of conflict. Because of these shifts, the status of marketing as a discipline within academic institutions has changed. More than ever in the past, marketing has deeply penetrated different spheres of education. Indeed, our educational institutions have become neoliberal arenas that increasingly valorise notions of worth dictated by the market world. In such changing times, it is important to understand how theories of marketing have evolved and how these theories have altered the society around us. Such an engagement not only helps us to see what is happening in the discipline but also provides an opportunity to understand more broadly the current zeitgeist across the globe.

This book provides its readers with an overview of how the disciplinary dialogue in India has changed since 1974. It is significant that some of the best articles from Decision are being published in this book. Decision is one of the oldest management journals in India and is a mirror of the disciplinary journey in the country over the last four decades. It helps us understand marketing at a discursive level and to locate some of the key nodal points within it. A discursive approach helps in deciphering the positions that are privileged and how power circulates within the claims of knowledge that are made in the field. For example, a discourse of decision within marketing situates the marketing manager as a key protagonist and valid knowledge claims can only be made when they help this actor to further her goals through effective decision-making. In its very genesis, marketing theorisation in this academic outlet had a specific goal, i.e., to help managers be efficient decision makers. Therefore, the very origins of marketing knowledge in Decision have framed the discipline in a certain specific way to further a goal. It has led to specific ontological, epistemological and axiological imperatives as are reflected in the book.