Gaining access to agency and structure in industrial marketing theory A critical pluralist approach

This article is concerned with gaining greater insight into the interplay between agency and structure in industrial marketing (IM) scholarship. The article’s intent is to embed Midgley’s notion of critical pluralism within this endeavour. The article commends the movement towards increased deployme...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMarketing theory Vol. 14; no. 4; pp. 395 - 416
Main Authors Nicholson, John D., Brennan, Ross, Midgley, Gerald
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.12.2014
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Industrial markets
Integrated marketing
Market structure
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Studies
critical realism
structuration
Critical pluralism
general theory
process theory
integrative theory
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Summary:This article is concerned with gaining greater insight into the interplay between agency and structure in industrial marketing (IM) scholarship. The article’s intent is to embed Midgley’s notion of critical pluralism within this endeavour. The article commends the movement towards increased deployment of critical realism, but cautions against the dangers of creating further atomism in marketing theory by generating another paradigm of thought with strongly defended boundaries, impervious to outside influence. The article advances a case for critical pluralism within IM scholarship and offers a three-dimensional (theoretical, methodological and methodical) framework to aid this. The discussion demonstrates how critical pluralism can be deployed to gain insights into agency and structure using a number of ‘integrative’ theoretical perspectives.
ISSN:1470-5931
1741-301X
DOI:10.1177/1470593114538994