Paper info

Some Common Issues on Business to Business Marketing Organization Confronted to Empirical Evidence

Bjoern Sven Ivens and Catherine Pardo

The paper was published at the 24th IMP-conference in Uppsala, Sweden in 2008.

This communication can be considered as a follow-up of two previous IMP communications. During the 2006 IMP Conference the status of the organizational aspect of the marketing function in the business markets was discussed (Pardo and Ivens, 2006). At this occasion, it was stressed that this issue was to be linked to the debates - mentioned by several authors - on the decline of the marketing function within companies. During the 2007 conference, Ivens et al. reviewed the writings of three leading authors in the field of marketing organization (Webster, Piercy, and Homburg) and contrasted them with the IMP view on marketing organization. The present communication enlarges the perspective by providing empirical evidence (or non evidence) to certain theoretical assumptions commonly raised in the narrow field of marketing organization. The research is based on a survey among marketing and sales executives and managers (n = 203) and enlightens the following questions usually raised about the marketing organization: 1) is marketing still done in ",marketing departments",? 2) what are the core marketing activities?3) What is the power of marketing? 4)What about the degree of centralization, standardization, formalization and specialization of marketing? and finally 5) what are the trends in the evolution of the marketing organization.