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Drucker’s insights on market orientation and innovation: implications for emerging areas in high-technology marketing

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Abstract

In 1954, Drucker boldly declared that organizations have only two basic functions, marketing and innovation. While true for any organization, this insight is particularly pertinent for technology-based businesses. The complicated environment surrounding high-tech companies creates a great need for sophisticated marketing. Yet these companies continue to have under-developed competencies in marketing and in understanding customer needs. This essay explores Drucker’s insights with respect to two particularly salient issues for high-tech companies: developing and implementing a market orientation and break-through innovations. We review Drucker’s insights and synthesize them with the scholarly research on these issues. Finally, we discuss three emerging areas in high-tech marketing where academics and managers could build on Drucker’s insights to guide future research and practice: market driving, customer co-creation, and corporate social responsibility. These illustrative examples highlight that even today, Drucker’s writings continue to offer remarkable guidance to scholars and managers who are willing to take the time to reflect, understand, and incorporate his insights in the unique context of high-tech industries.

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Notes

  1. Due to space constraints, the supporting Table 1 linking Drucker’s works to contemporary research in marketing is not included. Please contact the first author for a copy of this Table 1.

  2. Drucker’s thoughts on innovation were influenced by Joseph Schumpeter (1942), whom he cited at length in The Ecological Vision (1993).

  3. Our statement about Drucker not having anticipated some of the topics in this section is based on our selective, rather than exhaustive, review of his writings.

  4. These three areas were chosen because Drucker’s insights were influential in the evolution of these emerging areas; and because these areas are relevant to both market orientation and innovation, the two dominant themes explored in this essay. We acknowledge that Drucker’s impact on theory and practice is much too great to be captured in just three examples, or even a few essays. Thus, rather than attempting the near-impossible task of being comprehensive in documenting Drucker’s impact, we offer these three areas as illustrative examples of how contemporary scholars and practitioners can extend Drucker’s thinking in the contexts of high-tech markets.

  5. Increasing returns effects are seen in industries as wide ranging as the many popular social networking sites today, to any industry based on a particular technology platform where connectivity across users is desired (computer gaming, software compatibility, etc.). Interestingly, despite Drucker’s many insights regarding the need to understand market forces, the topic of network effects does not appear to have received much attention in his writings.

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Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and constructive feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business Administration, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA

    Jakki J. Mohr

  2. College of Business and Economics, Boise State University, Boise, ID, 83725-1630, USA

    Shikhar Sarin

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  1. Jakki J. Mohr
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  2. Shikhar Sarin
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Correspondence to Jakki J. Mohr.

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Table 1

Drucker’s Insights and Ties to Current Research in Marketing (DOC 55 KB)

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Mohr, J.J., Sarin, S. Drucker’s insights on market orientation and innovation: implications for emerging areas in high-technology marketing. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 37, 85–96 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-008-0101-5

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