Measuring The Theoretical Paradigm Shift From Marketing Mix To Relational Marketing

Abstract

Much has been written in the recent marketing literature on the perceived importance of moving from a transaction basis to a long-term relationship basis in terms of personal selling.  Since the traditional marketing mix paradigm has dominated marketing philosophy for so long, many perceive there is a marketing shift, especially in service marketing, to the relational marketing paradigm.  A sales force from five industries, representing primarily service industries (n=142), were tested on a number of statistical techniques including correlations, stepwise regression, and n-way ANOVA, and yielded no significant trend to support the theoretical paradigm shift.