The Long Reach of the Market

This chapter summarises the nature of the marketing firm with particular reference to collective intentionality and metacontingency. The firm, especially in the form of the contemporary corporation, is often accused of ‘managerialism’, the pursuit by managers of their own interests at the expense of those of their workers and consumers. The firm is said to have superseded the market and its managers to have the discretion to ignore stakeholders other than themselves, notably shareholders, employees and consumers, so that the pursuit of narrow managerial interests can absorb the resources of the firm and the energies of its personnel. The chapter argues that in the light of what has been said about the marketing firm, it is difficult to sustain this view. Firms operate within the market as is apparent from the nexus of markets for which they are a conduit for contracting with shareholders, employees and consumerate. The inevitability of differing interests among stakeholders is tempered by the wants of the consumerate which enforces discipline of the external marketplace on all of the individuals and groups within the enterprise. Stakeholder groups provide one another with resources they could not otherwise obtain, notably the expertise and skill of the firm’s entrepreneurial managers in ensuring the creation and use of a profitable portfolio of marketing mixes. This is the basis of the cardinal relationship of the marketing firm.