An anthropologist, folklorist, and literary critic besides being
a marketing professor, Alf H. Walle takes a refreshingly
interdisciplinary look at the impact of modern social thought upon
marketing and social research. Tracing key ideas back to their
intellectual roots, Walle shows how the evolution of social theory,
and the controversies it has engendered, can and should transform
the way marketers approach consumers. He provides a theoretic
underpinning for qualitative consumer research and presents a lucid
theoretical and methodological overview for qualitative methods in
marketing, research that parallels what others, such as Shelby
Hunt, have provided for scientific methods in marketing. His book
is a provocative, thoughtful, and probing study of qualitative
social theory and its important contributions to marketing and
consumer research. It is of value to both practitioners and
academics. Arguing that the social structural methods have been
largely ignored, Walle rehabilitates this general method and
compares it to poststructural alternatives.
Walle shows that to understand the evolution of modern social
theory, one must come to grips with the work of three towering
pioneers: Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx, and that
researchers must understand and appreciate the contributions and
influence of pioneers in order to avoid the myopic vision of our
own time. Praising Hegel's metaphor of cultures as living organisms
and his forging of the concept we now call National Character,
Walle points to Hegel as the pioneering social structuralist and as
the man who, as a negative example, inspired the poststructuralists
to action. Walle ends with a well reasoned analysis of
poststructural thought in marketing-consumer research, and suggests
that conflict theory--an alternative to poststructural methods that
evolved from social structural roots--is often more appropriate
than poststructural analysis in marketing and consumer research.
Relating both conflict theory and poststructural analysis to the
actual needs of marketing consumer researchers, "Exotic Visions in
Marketing Theory and Practice" provides unique, practical insights
for those who teach market research as well as practitioners who
pursue it for a living.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!