The Making of Marketing Decisions in Modern Marketing Environments

Abstract

Marketing is currently undergoing a major shift driven by advances in marketing technology, which also means that marketing decision making is changing. There is not much research on how the attributes of the modern marketing landscape are reflected in marketing managers’ decision making, however. Drawing on the literature on naturalistic decision making and the situative perspective on cognition and action, we analyze the making of marketing decisions through a qualitative study involving marketing managers at 15 companies. We identify three key behavioral characteristics of modern marketing decisions (agile, inventive, and reflexive) which reflect the attributes of modern marketing environments (complex, data intensive, and volatile). By revealing how these characteristics are realized as concrete actions, we contribute a novel perspective on the making of marketing decisions in modern marketing environments.

Keywords: modern marketing, Decision making, situated cognition, naturalistic decision making, Agile, data-driven marketing