Call for paper Journal of Marketing Management 2007:
Deadline for submission of paper: 1 November 2006
Guest editors: Kjell Gronhaug and Tore Kristensen

Questions and submission of paper to: tk.marktg@cbs.dk

Marketing Management as a Design Process

–Heskett (2002) Toothpicks and Logos

The design concept is not restricted to giving form, but rather objects, systems, services and experiences which are both functional and give meaning. It takes place in settings where imagination, preparedness and situatedness puts the decisionmaker in the dilemma of long time to prepare for action and very short time to respond to the immediate requirements when action is required. Action requires “situatedness” on the spot or “on-line” to use a metaphor. Another metaphor is “stir fry cooking”. Strategic cognition is “embodied” in physical people and “embedded” in physical and cultural contexts. We take time to prepare the ingredients we want to cook, but the process of cooking itself is very brief. In practice modular designs and platforms for action seems to be appropriate.

The issue of epistemology is different than in science and the humanities (Romme 2003). Science is concerned with causal explanations of what has already happened and humanities are reflections on what is happing and how we feel about it. Designing is the imaginative faculty in action enabling us to build a future. The validity claim is whether it will work when the situation arrives.

Marketing managers face on a regular basis such situations. Facing competitive action, failing campaigns, or just being summoned to the boardroom to give a statement to the board of directors, all the analyses and preparations are suddenly put to an acid test where designs are made instantly with strategic implications strategic. How does our marketing manager prepare diligently for such situations? Knowledge creating systems, scenarios, platforms for modular elements of strategy and the imagination to see what is conceivable seems to be the tools. How does it work?

Contributions can focus on, but are not restricted to:

• Situated decision making in marketing
• Personal and verbal approach to strategic marketing decisions
• Design and marketing collaboration
• How the senses may affect marketing management decisions
• Emotional issues (and gutfeeling) in situated marketing management decisions
• Knowledge sharing in MM
• The use of cognitive artefacts in MM (e.g. bulleting boards, visual scenarios, prototypes
• Marketing management as distributes cognition across business functions
• Planning and analysis for situated action MM
• Staging physical space for MM (e.g. a design studio metaphor)
• Decision processes in situated marketing action