Abstract: the light of the redefinition of "marketing" by the AMA in service/relational terms, and a recent review of the current vector of research in marketing (Littler and Tynan 2005), it seems an appropriate time to provide a substantial review of the past, present and likely future of what has become known as Relationship Marketing, together with an extensive list of key RM literature. This paper will take a reader through the origin, development and current state of RM research, with notes on the future of the research and practice of RM. The paper concludes that RM is here to stay, whether or not it is recognised as the dominant logic/paradigm of marketing.
Keywords: Relationship Marketing, paradigm. --Download Article
Introduction: In the light of the redefinition of the term "marketing" by the AMA^ in service/relational terms, and a recent review of the current vector of research in marketing (Littler and Tynan 2005), it seems an appropriate time to provide a substantial review of the past, present and likely future of research of what has become known as Relationship Marketing. In the Dictionary of Philosophy, A.R Lacey (1996) defines a paradigm as "a shared assumption, or an accepted theory which governs the outlook of an epoch and its approach to scientific problems...[giving]... standard forms of solutions to problems". Within the physical and social sciences, it is common for one paradigm, a dominant paradigm to be prevalent.
Marketing & CRM
