Work

If marketing is a phenomenon of creating meaningfulness, what is meaningful marketing theory?

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Marketing is again confronting foundational questions about what it fundamentally is . Responding to Grönroos’s ( 2026 ) argument that marketing’s crisis is ontological rather than methodological, this commentary engages with his call to re-anchor the discipline in a single overarching phenomenon. Building on the notion of marketing as a phenomenon of creating meaningfulness (Grönroos, 2023 ), the commentary examines what this phenomenological reframing implies for marketing theory. We argue that taking meaningfulness seriously destabilises core assumptions about marketing’s explanandum. To clarify what meaningful marketing theory requires, we assess marketing-indigenous meta-theories—service-dominant logic and resource-advantage theory. This assessment shows that while these frameworks offer necessary foundations, none alone can fully explain the emergence, contestation, and societal impact of meaningfulness. Instead, meaningful marketing theory benefits from a structured form of meta-theoretical pluralism in which a shared market-centric orientation provides coherence, while complementary perspectives from within and outside of marketing deepen the explanandum for meaningfulness.

Source: AMS Review

DOI: 10.1007/s13162-026-00340-5

Authors: Roderick J. Brodie, Julia A. Fehrer, John D. Nicholson

Institutions: University of Auckland, University of Huddersfield

Language: English

Topic: Marketing and Advertising Strategies

Subfield: Marketing

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,290

Funder: University of Auckland