Critical Marketing

Conveners:

Per Skålén, per.skalen@kau.se,

Martin Fougère, martin.fougere@hanken.fi,

Mona Moufahim, mona.moufahim@nottingham.edu.cn,

Peter Svensson, peter.svensson@fek.lu.se.

In their review of critical management research, Alvesson and Willmott (1996: 128) argue that ‘marketing is perhaps the sub discipline of management to which CT [Critical Theory] (and related intellectual traditions) can contribute most, and yet it is also in this specialism that the influence of critical analysis is weakest’. Things have changed in this respect. Since the publication of Alvesson and Willmott’s book, articles and books on critical marketing have been published, conference streams have been organized and journals at least partially devoted to critical studies of marketing phenomena have been founded.

Still, however, mainstream marketing has been more or less unaffected by the critical research endeavour. This should be contrasted with the fields of management and organization studies wherein critical studies have come to enjoy a much stronger position. The top marketing journals never publish critical marketing articles and marketing textbooks do not usually include topics associated with critical marketing (books about consumer behaviour being a notable exception).

Arguably, one important reason to this is that most of mainstream marketing research starts from managerial assumptions. Almost all of this research is applied and managerial. This managerial imperative has been strongly institutionalized within marketing discourse. “Marketing theory” is often looked upon with suspicion, not to speak of “critical marketing theory”.

This remaining lack of critique is problematic. It is problematic not only because marketing has turned into a general managerial discourse; its managerialism is also invested with power based on truth claims that are legitimated by its position as an academic discipline and expertise (Hackley 2003; Marion 2006). This has turned marketing into an important source of power for legitimizing, producing and reproducing not only consumerism but also the managerialism that characterizes contemporary society and its organizations (Brownlie et al. 1999; du Gay 1996). Through its undisputed place in business schools and executive training, its permeation of management guru literature (Furusten 1999) and its never-ending presence in our (post)modern environment (Brown 1995), marketing discourse has a huge impact on the management of private (du Gay and Salaman 1992; Hochschild 1983) and public (Clarke and Newman 1997; Fairclough 1993) organizations. Discourses invested with such power must be fundamentally evaluated, critically analyzed and reflected upon if we are to understand what they do or may do to societies and human beings. This project needs to be a collective endeavor.

In order to articulate such a social and reflexive critique of marketing theory and practice we invite researchers to submit papers positioned outside mainstream managerial marketing research. We are open to submissions from a range of theoretical perspectives including but not limited to poststructuralism, Marxism, feminism, queer theory, critical theory, postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, environmentalism / ecological philosophy. Papers might be conceptual or empirical. When it comes to methods no priority is given to quantitative or qualitative methodologies. Studies that focus on intra-organizational and consumption issues are equally welcome.

The motivation for the workshop is simple: neither the PDW nor the main program events at the AOM give us enough opportunity to engage in in-depth discussion of papers in critical management studies. So the workshop will be organized as a series of parallel streams (working groups). Each stream will consist of people who have contributed papers on a well-defined topic (perhaps with some invited discussants), and the group will work together over the course of the day-and-a-half, going around the room discussing the papers in turn. In order to maximize discussion, authors will not present their own papers, but rather participants will be asked to present and discuss each others' papers. We will also arrange a couple of plenary sessions and some social time where all the participants come together.

We are yet to finalize the cost of the workshop, but based on present estimates, we anticipate that the workshop will cost between $400 and $550 for each participant, depending on whether they choose to stay for two nights or three, and whether they choose single or double rooms.  The fee will include meals (lunch and dinner on 7th and all 3 meals on 8th).  We will finalize the details quickly on this front.

If you wish to be part of this stream, please submit a 250 word abstract to per.skalen@kau.se, martin.fougere@hanken.fi, mona.moufahim@nottingham.edu.cn, and peter.svensson@fek.lu.se by January 15^th, 2008.  Please note that submissions can be concurrently on review at the regular AOM 2008 conference as well.  The submission of an abstract constitutes a good-faith agreement to submit a full paper for the stream by June 1, 2008 if the paper is accepted.  The final paper should be less than 8000 words in length

NEW DATES (as of 30 December 2007)

Feb 20: Abstracts of papers submitted to stream conveners
March 10: Submissions accepted/rejected
June 15: Full papers submitted by this date for inclusion in the Workshop.