Hope for a stronger discipline of marketing

ABSTRACT To a new generation of marketing scholars, Shelby Hunt might be identified with Resource-Advantage (RA) Theory, marketing theory books, or philosophy of science debates from the 1980s. This article intends to put Hunt’s publishing efforts into a richer perspective for the reader. The outcome of Hunt’s works has strengthened the marketing discipline and allowed it to avoid being taken over by neighboring disciplines in business academia, such as management. The article first offers an overview of Hunt’s works and what characterizes his body of work that should matter to marketing scholars. This article then focuses on some of Hunt’s macromarketing and ethics contributions to highlight how his work in these areas has boosted the efforts of other scholars in the process of knowledge creation. The article closes with some thoughts on future research possibilities within the marketing discipline that are now warranted.