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Archives of Business Research – Vol. 9, No. 9

Publication Date: September 25, 2021

DOI:10.14738/abr.99.10740. Kortam, W., & Abbas, A. (2021). Foundations of a Relativity Marketing Theory. Archives of Business Research, 9(9). 1-12.

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Foundations of a Relativity Marketing Theory

Wael Kortam

British University in Egypt, Egypt

Abdelhameed Abbas

International Academy For Engineering & Media Sciences, Egypt

ABSTRACT

This research aims to open the way to review of the philosophical postulates and

ideological pathways that govern the contributions in marketing theory, to reflect

the scientific marketing truth. We do not mean by this to trace the history of

marketing thought, but rather, a re-investigation of the logic of its existence and

being. It is an attempt to re-explore and depart from the axioms that ruled

marketing thought. Marketing theory emerged from being a scientific theory that

can be true or false, to be an "ideology” defended by its supporters. From this point;

this research set the foundation for developing a new general marketing theory

based on the relativity concept, has the ability and adaptation to exceed the

boundaries of “product, technology, time, place, context and customer”, acquires its

being and existence from the verification of the current philosophy of marketing

science, and considering the marketing experience

Key words: Relativity Marketing, Marketing Theory, Marketing Truth, Relative Perceived

Customer Value.

INTRODUCTION

Business organizations adopt many marketing strategies in targeting their customers. Based on

conducting marketing research or not, marketing managers are developing their market

segmentation phase according to some of basis to present specific customer value proposition

to match customer expectations, thereby; achieve the customer satisfaction and loyalty, in

contrast; a gap between presented and perceived customer value is usually existed. Although;

marketing research has played a core role over the years to improve the understanding &

professionalism of marketing management, the forecast models of consumer behavior remains

low.

The essence of the marketing- theoretical foundations appears cloudy, marketing still needs a

central theoretical identity & definition, still continue on the same well-worn pathway of

theories testing based on the borrowing from other disciplines (Didia& Adiele, 2017). Despite

several endeavors by marketing scientists during last decades in developing theory, research

methodologies and its tools to achieve the scientific truth, it is still being built on

epistemological principles and postulates that bear distortions and obstacles in its se. many

marketing perspectives should be considered as ideological pathways, marketing research in

last years related or built-up around specific thoughts & ideology (Morris et al., 2002), that

impacted on scientific marketing research influences to be more traditional & follow

quantitative approaches instead of discovering and advancement (Chan, 2012), in addition to

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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 9, September-2021

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another several endeavors by marketing scholars to get out general marketing theory, because

of, the continuous gap between theory and practice comes from the different changed context

that business organizations are working, although of that; literature in holistic marketing

neglects the transformational eras and thoughts-perspective, when discussing and researching

the dimensions of holistic marketing in different contexts (Jha, 2012, Herciu & Ogrean, 2017).

moreover; the contextual marketing literatures presented it as result of e-commerce, web &

Technological environment , This reflect a superficial concept of contextual marketing- philosophy, in addition to; the methodologies of studies are varied significantly, without

rational justification, and were be unsuitable in some cases, this variation significantly led to

conflicting findings. This observed variations & its results threaten generalization and theory

building (Eisend, 2015). on the other hand; statistical linear relationship analysis has

dominated on business science thinking, that prevent in-depth understanding and discovering

into complex systems (May et al., 2008), while many of researches prove that marketing

phenomena has nonlinear relationships, whatever it positive or negative because of the nature

of industry and organizational contexts, while a nonlinear relationship may be more in line with

the reality.

Based on the previous, in addition to an observation of marketing phenomenon from reality

(business and customer perspective, secondary data analysis of “measuring the customer

perceived value in the Egyptian furniture market, end-user market, by AMI research agency,

Egypt 2018) by authors, which reveals about a baseline concept; “the only absolute is a relativity

perceived customer value proposition”, whatever; the level of scope or analysis and

measurement. Consequently; the authors proposed a conceptual model of relativity marketing- dimensions to be the cornerstone of developing a new relativity theory in marketing has ability

of adaptation to exceed the boundaries of business market – changes. according to the proposed

model; the relativity customer‟s satisfaction depends on the relativity of perceived value

proposition, which is determined by a three relative dimensions; 1) customer dynamics, 2)

relativity Space & Life-time, and 3) relativity context.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Holistic & Contextual Marketing, comprehensive and relevance- controversies, but the

gap still existed

Many scholars‟ researches have been revealed a wide gap and controversies of marketing

academics and practitioners (Foltean, 2019). academic marketing is losing its way, because of

the gap is growing between the interests, criteria, and priorities of academic, on other hand; the

increased needs of marketing executives dealing with fast-changing, and complex market,

consequently; academic marketing should be search for innovative connections with

consultancies and market research firms(Reibstein et al,2009), in addition to rethinking in the

purpose, premises and models of marketing, because of; the business landscape is changing, so

it is necessary realizing solutions to meet these challenges (Kumar, 2017). this generate the

need and importance of relevance to marketing practices, which is already widely accepted by

marketing scholars. However, marketing scholars concentrate on the theoretical and

methodological developments at the detriment of relevance. In other words, they lost their

concentration on both rigor and relevance (Wind, 2008).

The several endeavors by marketing scholars to get out general marketing theory, because of,

this continuous gap between theory and practice, which comes from the different changed

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Kortam, W., & Abbas, A. (2021). Foundations of a Relativity Marketing Theory. Archives of Business Research, 9(9). 1-12.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.99.10740

context that business organizations are working, . Marketing has taken many transformational

decades from holistic perspective, to introduce a total business solutions for all types of

business models of profit and non-profit organizations; 1) Value-based marketing triggered by

company value, profitability and cost. 2) Knowledge-based marketing; data / information /

intellectual capital, 3) Relationship marketing caused by relationship and intimacy, 4) Social

marketing caused by social values and contributions, 5) Convergence marketing generated by

planned organizational change and development, 6) Brand-based marketing driven by

branding concepts, 7) Transformational marketing triggered by marketing revolution

initiatives (Kortam, 2017). According to (Tushi, 2014); The core concept of holistic marketing- strategy triggered from the word Holism, that is not possible to determine or explain all the

properties of a particular system through its component parts alone. the holistic marketing- philosophy, that type of marketing works to sustain customers‟ satisfaction as well as

profitability, through combination of all component variables impact, it could give more result

than when they are employed singularly. (Herciu & Ogrean, 2017); Holistic marketing, on the

other hand, has appeared against the background of the traditional model of marketing which

became obsolete (Stengel and Officer 2004); it could no longer dealing with the increased

complexity of the interrelations in the with different constituents in the business environment,

additionally; the growing requirements pressure from its various components. (Govindarajan

2007; Faarup 2010),(Keller and Kotler 2006). (Jha, 2012, Herciu & Ogrean, 2017); As proposed

by Kotler et al. (2007) Although of that; The literature in holistic marketing neglects the

transformational eras and thoughts-perspective, when discussing and researching the

dimensions of holistic marketing in different contexts.

Another point of view by scholars attempt to provide realistic and relevant solutions through

the transformation from holistic view to the context- contextual marketing- which refers to

contextual factors should be understood to enhance marketers in relevant targeting, solutions

& etc, for their customers. The literature focus on the create marketing knowledge & Appling

general marketing theory and concepts as a response to specific context, that refers to the

extent to which provide customers with relevant information in the right context and in real- time (Lee & Jun 2007, Kenny and Marshall, 2000), while (Morrish & Harris, 2011) The essence

of Contextual Marketing is building-up around “situation specific”, this triggers to develop a

marketing approach and application response and dealing with an individual focal firm,

subsequently, this creates an original and inherent complexity. Although this complex, there

are “essential key factors” should be identified that allow how marketing is implemented within

each context. Though, these factors are inter-dependent, inter-related and synergistically

significant in that for effective interface to take place between the firm and the market, firms

“simply have to perform” (Carson and Gilmore, 2000, p. 5) these activities – they cannot be

overlooked if it is to do business. Although the previous concepts of CM refers to contextual

factors should be understood to enhance marketers in relevant targeting, solutions & etc., for

their customers, it present contextual marketing as result of e-commerce, web & Technological

environment , This reflect a superficial concept of contextual marketing- philosophy. According

to; (Lee & Jun 2007);( Schilit et al.,1994, Chen and Kotz,2000 and Figge, 2004), (Luo X,

2003,2015); Their definitions focuses on many aspects of context: personal context (emotion,

physical state) and environmental context (location, the number of people nearby the user).

computing context (network connectivity, communication costs, etc.), user context (user

profile, location, etc.), and physical context (lighting, noise, etc.), time context (time of day,

week, month, and season of the year), and “situation dependency” as a new concept to adaption.