(c) Priya Narayanan, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

Caution: this article is on academic research. If that isn’t your cup of tea, you could read my recent popular article on The CMO’s Playbook instead.

Context of this article

About three months ago, reading (again) Shelby Hunt’s “The nature and scope of marketing”, I decided to write to Prof. Hunt, not with any particular research question or objective, but to interact once with the great mind that could, in one sweeping paragraph, summarize all of marketing till then:

“During the past three decades, two controversies have overshadowed all others in the marketing literature. The first is the “Is marketing a science?” controversy sparked by an early JOURNAL OF MARKETING article by Converse entitled “The Development of a Science of Marketing.” Other prominent writers who fueled the debate included Bartels, Hutchinson, Baumol, Buzzell, Taylor, and Halbert. After raging throughout most of the ’50s and ’60s, the controversy has since waned. The waning may be more apparent than real, however, because many of the substantive issues underlying the marketing science controversy overlap with the more recent “nature of marketing” (broadening the concept of marketing) debate. Fundamental to both controversies are some radically different perspectives on the essential characteristics of both marketing and science.” (Hunt 1976, p. 17, emphasis added)

Reading this the first time, towards the end of the second year of my PhD, I was not impressed. But, having read and written and thought and analysed much, I start to sense in Hunt’s writing a comprehensiveness, clarity, and directness that was not visible to me earlier. To learn that the author of this writing is no longer with us and that the meeting I considered requesting (I even wondered which email address would Prof. Hunt be reachable at, since he had recently retired from his long-standing faculty position), left me with a sense of loss that I did not anticipate. This article is an attempt to understand why.

My journey with Hunt’s work

Hunt’s early papers were prescribed reading for me as a student of the doctoral course on marketing theory. Naturally, there was an element of compulsion and dislike in reading those papers: discussing them in class felt unreal and, worse, unnecessary. More so, because these papers were concerned with the most abstract of topics relating to the field of marketing – defining marketing (1992), scope (1976), objectivity (1993), realism (1992), truth (1990), theories (1983), and so on. What could be duller for a fresh eager PhD student waiting to get hold of data and publish papers on how brands impacted consumer choice! After all, the field of marketing is, was, has been, and will be. Why did I have to care?

However, things became more complicated as I progressed along my doctoral journey. I learnt over time that marketing was not (and perhaps never would be) a pure science like mathematics – with its rules and predictability – or even a neatly defined numerical social science like finance – with its numbers and models. It was (and continues to be) a far too nebulous object. What Hunt did was to prepare us to understand the shape of the amoeba even as it continuously reshaped itself. What I imagined were boring papers written in the late 1900s (many of them before I was born) and hence, hardly relevant today, now seemed sweeping brushstrokes that defined and structured a canvas, so that other researchers could find and color their own little bits on parts of that canvas.

That was the beginning of re-reading Hunt’s papers. It was also a journey of discovery, that Hunt had astutely commented not just on the field of marketing, but on marketing ethics, relationship marketing, competition, and myriad other topics. My original disinterest, arising partly from a lack of comprehension, slowly gave way to awe at Hunt’s clear writing and coherent arguments. Of course, many papers from many other authors across various marketing and psychology journals continue to awe me, but what stands out in Hunt’s work (and usually in the best conceptual writing) is the sheer combination of complexity and clarity. It is not easy to define a complex topic such as the scope of marketing with the same clarity as explaining a relatively narrow question of how the screen size of devices could impact consumers reliance on affective information.

An opinionated view of selected papers by Hunt

Given my research focus on consumer psychology, branding, and dual-process theories, I do not consider myself capable of an informed review or critique of any section of Hunt’s work. Nor am I aware of existing criticism of this vast body of research. But that has not stopped me from reading some of Hunt’s papers and finding my favorites over the years! Here are my notes on papers (co) authored by Hunt that impacted me the most. Other papers that do not find mention below are on marketing theory and theory in marketing (1971-1983), and deal with grand ideas.

For re-institutionalizing the marketing discipline in Era V (2020 AMSR)

“The fact that (1) consumer behavior has divorced itself from the marketing discipline, (2) most of marketing’s doctoral students are nominally, but not substantively, marketing, and (3) graduates of marketing’s doctoral programs have had only limited exposure to the theoretical, empirical, and historical knowledge-content of marketing, the marketing discipline is being de-institutionalized. Through time, a discipline that does not reproduce itself faces the ultimate de-institutionalization. That is, it faces extinction.” (Hunt 2020, p. 196).

Reading the above was eye-opening. Could it be true that that the field I had very consciously decided to align with was in danger of unravelling? The answer did seem yes, and it is a question which I try to answer each time a journal table of contents arrives in the mail. After all, I began my PhD convinced that consumer behavior was part of marketing (as Hunt points out) and yet, the question of marketing relevance of consumer research exists. This question might today require more clarity or even a redefinition of what marketing is (could be), partly because consumers, and not just firms on their own, are increasingly impacting marketing decisions and activities of firms.

The nature and scope of marketing (1976 JM)

“The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model of the scope of marketing and to use that model to analyze (1) the approaches to the study of marketing, (2) the “nature of marketing” controversy, and (3) the marketing science debate.” (Hunt 1976, p. 17).

This statement was, very clearly, spoken in the voice of someone who stood tall, someone who viewed the field of marketing from great heights and could see far into the future (irrespective of the merits and demerits of the perspective). In classifying the field of marketing – “all marketing phenomena, issues, problems, models, theories, and research” (p. 20; wow!) – into eight categories through a 2 x 2 x 2 matrix, Hunt provided an incredibly simple and seemingly intuitive structure for a complex field that to others would have seemed intriguing yet unfathomable.

Marketing is… (1992 JAMS)

“So, what is marketing? Marketing is a university discipline that aspires to be a professional discipline and that, accordingly, has responsibilities (a) to society, for providing objective knowledge and technically competent, socially responsible, liberally educated graduates, (b) to students, for providing an education that will enable them to get on the socioeconomic ladder and prepare them for their roles as competent, responsible marketers and citizens, (c) to marketing practice, for providing a continuing supply of competent, responsible entrants to the marketing profession and for providing new knowledge about both the micro and macro dimensions of marketing, and (d) to the academy, for upholding its mission of retailing, warehousing, and producing knowledge, its contract with society of objective knowledge for academic freedom, and its core values of reason, evidence, openness, and civility. Such is marketing. But, what will marketing be? What will marketing become? Ah. that is up to us, isn’t it?” (Hunt 1992, p. 310, emphasis added)

Probably the most inspiring paragraph for those who care about the field of marketing! I definitely disagree with the idea that marketing is a “university discipline that aspires to be a professional discipline” because my view is the opposite – marketing has and will continue to exist as a professional disciple regardless of whether it is studied as a university discipline. As academicians, we have the privilege of studying practice, structuring it into a science, and shaping its course through knowledge dissemination. But Hunt’s views make ample sense as the field of (academic) marketing continues its soul-searching, particularly with regard to practitioner relevance.

Closing note

To me, the biggest learning from all of Hunt’s papers was not what marketing is/was but why marketing and why marketing theory, and why marketing researchers should care about the field of marketing. I have not heard Prof. Hunt speak but this great mind has certainly inspired me to learn, think, write, and teach. And the journey of learning continues.

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P.S. If this article sounds hagiographic, it just shows that I am as yet too ignorant to criticize!