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Christian Gronroos: Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This article was published in Asia-Australia Marketing Journal, Vol. 2 No. 1, 1994, was reissued in Management Decision, Vol. 32 No. 2, 1994 and is based on an invited paper presented at the 1st International Colloquium in Relationship Marketing, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, August 1993.
The marketing mix management paradigm has dominated marketing thought, research and practice since it was introduced almost 40 years ago. Today, this paradigm is beginning to lose its position[1, 2, 3]. New approaches have been emerging in marketing research. The globalization of business and the evolving recognition of the importance of customer retention and market economies and of customer relationship economics, among other trends, reinforce the change in mainstream marketing.
Relationship building and management, or what has been labelled relationship marketing, is one leading new approach to marketing which eventually has entered the marketing literature[2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. A paradigm shift is clearly under way. In services marketing, especially in Europe and Australia but to some extent also in North America, and in industrial marketing, especially in Europe, this paradigm shift has already taken place. Books published on services marketing[15, 16, 17] and on industrial marketing[18, 19, 20] as well as major research reports published are based on the relationship marketing paradigm.
A major shift in the perception of the fundamentals of marketing is taking place. The shift is so dramatic that it can, no doubt, be described as a paradigm shift[21]. Marketing researchers have been passionately convinced about the paradigmatic nature of marketing mix management and the Four Ps model[22]. To challenge marketing mix management as the basic foundation for all marketing thinking has been as heretical as it was for Copernicus to proclaim that the earth moved[23, 24].
The purpose of this report is to discuss the nature and consequences of the dominating marketing paradigm of today, marketing mix management of the managerial school (cf. [25]) and how evolving trends in business and modern research into, for example, industrial marketing, services marketing and customer relationship economics demand a relationship-oriented approach to marketing. Relationship building and management are found to be an underlying facet in the research into these...