Charting new directions for marketing

Four fundamental issues serve to establish the identity of the field of marketing, distinguish it from other fields and disciplines, and compel further research inquiry. These issues ask (1) How do customers and consumers really behave? (2) How do markets function and evolve? (3) How do firms relate to their markets? and (4) What are the contributions of marketing to organizational performance and societal welfare? These issues also serve as the organizing framework for this special issue Although the questions posed by these fundamental issues are durable, new answers will need to be sought to accommodate the following trends and disruptions that are shaping the direction of marketing: (1) the connected knowledge economy; (2) globalizing, converging, and consolidating industries; (3) fragmenting and frictionless markets; (4) empowered customers and consumers; and (5) adaptive organizations. These new directions challenge academic marketing to provide meaningful measures, inferences, and calibration; understand functional interfaces; and rethink the role of theory.