Power-Based Typology of Marketing Systems: Foundation for Alternative Marketing Theory in the Post-Capitalist Marketing Era

Abstract

To date, orthodox marketing has regarded markets and marketing systems as static and mechanistic rather than dynamic and emergent under the aegis of neoclassical economics. Nevertheless, today, as we transition to a post-industrial era, multiple marketing systems coexist to create consumer satisfaction. This paper, synthesizing Follett's power dichotomy with Alderson's systems approach, aims to typologize marketing systems from a political economic paradigm, which stresses the importance of power phenomena in developing an alternative marketing theory. The present paper also aims to contribute to theory from a higher-order perspective by integrating various phenomena (i.e., marketing systems and power), which have previously been addressed in a piecemeal fashion across diverse domains. The author proposes the “power-with oriented marketing system” as the ideal marketing system, which aims to facilitate resource transfers and the fair distribution of co-created value in a prosumption disposed, post-capitalist marketing era.