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Home  >  All Issues  >  2019  >  No.12  >  Article Details
Marketing Strategy Research: A Literature Review and Future Directions
Wang Yonggui  , 1, Hong Aoran2
Full Article  |  PDF Article(885.6 KB)
Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 41, Issue 12, pp. 74 - 93 (2019)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2019.12.004
First published at:Dec 01, 2019
Summary
References
Summary

Marketing strategy research takes organization as the research subject and aims to solve the marketing strategy problem of the organization. It is an important stream of marketing research. The relevant theories and research results of the marketing strategy can provide cutting-edge insights for firms’ chief marketing officers and marketing managers, and guide the marketing practices of firms. However, there has not been a systematic review of the latest studies in this research stream.

Based on the comprehensive review and induction of the main literature on marketing strategy research in the past seven years （2013-2019）, this paper focuses on the following three tasks to fill this gap. Firstly, combing and developing the previous important review studies of the marketing strategy, this paper identifies the scope of marketing strategy research, and develops an integrated framework for this research area by dividing marketing strategy research into three levels: organizational level, business level and transaction level. In detail, marketing strategy research at the organizational level mainly involves the formation and implementation of the marketing strategy under the guidance of the company-level strategy and business unit strategy, and the role the marketing department plays in an organization; marketing strategy research at the business level is oriented toward the organization’s marketing decisions for its specific business, primarily related to research on STP and 4Ps, such as market strategy, branding strategy, product-related strategy and so on; marketing strategy research at the transaction level mainly focuses on studies of the links and relationships between a certain firm and its upstream and downstream partners, including channel selection, channel governance and sales force management, etc.

Secondly, based on the compilation and summary of three top English journals and three top Chinese journals in the field of marketing research in the past seven years （2013-2019）, this paper analyzes and reveals the proportion and growing trend of the whole marketing strategy research and its each sub-domain.

Finally, based on both the theoretical literature review and the hotspots of marketing practices in recent years, this paper sorts out the hot topics of three sub-domains of marketing strategy research, and identifies the popular topics of priorities in the next few years, including the role of marketing department and marketing-finance interface at the organizational level; brand management, customer participation and new product development at the business level; and channel governance at the transaction level. By reviewing and analyzing these hot topics, this paper states the status quo and problems of each sub-domain of marketing strategy research, and points out the main directions of future research.

Keywords
marketing strategy; marketing strategy research; marketing
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Cite this article
Wang Yonggui, Hong Aoran. Marketing Strategy Research: A Literature Review and Future Directions[J]. Foreign Economics & Management, 2019, 41(12): 74-93. 
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