Researching the Role o f Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in

Contemporary Marketing Practices

Mairead Brady, School of Business, Trinity College, College Green, Dublin 2,

Ireland. Tel: +353 1896 2705, Email: Mairead.Brady@tcd.ie

Martin R. Fellenz, School of Business, Trinity College, College Green, Dublin 2,

Ireland. Tel: +353 1896 2630, Email: Martin.Fellenz@tcd.ie

Richard Brookes, School of Business, University of Auckland, Auckland,

New Zealand. Tel: +64 9373 7599, Email: r.brookes@auckland.ac.nz

Abstract
Purpose: This paper reports a general historical and contemporary review of the role of
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) within marketing practice as it has
developed over the last decade. It also suggests how the academic research agenda
should change to be reflective of the mistakes of the past and the challenges of the
future. This paper suggests that a new model for how researchers study ICT deployment
within marketing practice is needed and that we need to challenge the mental models of
how we research and report on ICT assimilation within marketing practice.
Approach: Theoretical.
Practical Implications: Driving the ICT debate both academically and practically.
Challenging academics to be more practice and implementation focused and to study the
resultant skill set development rather than to monitor current or past behaviour. A call
for academics to design a research agenda to advance ICT deployment in an optimum
manner.
Originality/value of paper: Despite the hype of ICT deployment in the late 1990s
marketers have struggled to embrace ICT within their organisations due in part to a lack
of academic clarity and study. Much of the work to date has simply reported on
marketing practice rather than attempting to drive best practice and take a holistic and
critical view of what is needed from marketing and also organisationally to deploy ICT
successfully now and in the future.
Key words: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT/IT), Marketing
Practices, ICT Skills, E-marketing.
Paper Category: Viewpoint

Electronic
Electroniccopy
copyavailable
availableat:
at:https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302
http://ssrn.com/abstract=989302
Introduction
Over the last 50 years organizations have increasingly come to rely on technology to
support communication and information processing in all areas of their operations. For
much of this time marketing practitioners have struggled to find the best ways to
introduce such information and communication technology (ICT) successfully into their
domain, while marketing academics struggled to develop appropriate explanatory and
prescriptive frameworks to enable the comprehensive study of this development. The
Contemporary Marketing Practices (CMP) framework (Coviello et al., 2002) and the
resulting empirical research findings highlight the ICT challenges for marketers during
the 1990s and onto present day (Brodie et al., 2007). This paper explores the
developments of ICT within the CMP framework aligned to the technological
developments of that time and evaluates the role of ICT in marketing practice as well as
its reflection in the CMP framework. The paper supports the continued expansion of
ICTs within the CMP framework to more fully reflect contemporary ICT developments
and assimilation within business and society. It further challenges CMP researchers to
expand their research agenda to more explicitly and more centrally address pragmatic
concerns regarding ICT deployment in marketing and by marketers in order to actively
and constructively support the development of future marketing practice. The discussion
also identifies and argues for the need to study and expand the skill set of marketers into
technological, managerial, and organizational areas to more fully enable the use of ICT
within contemporary marketing practice.

The Role of ICTs in CMP

The changing role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in marketing
poses a substantial challenge to both marketing academics and practitioners who have
struggled to conceptualize and operationalize the role of information technology (IT, or
interchangeably called ICT as the more comprehensive term) as a core part of
marketing. While numerous academic and practitioner articles in the 1980’s and 1990’s
discussed how ICTs were expected to impact on marketing practice from general and
individual ICT perspectives, no usable framework to track the impacts of ICT
developments and deployment on marketing practice emerged. Most studies and articles
had a limited internet and to a lesser extent database orientation rather than a focus on
the totality of ICT within marketing. The initial contemporary marketing practices
(CMP) studies only included a limited technology dimension. It was only when

Electronic
Electroniccopy
copyavailable
availableat:
at:https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302
http://ssrn.com/abstract=989302
Coviello et al. (2001; 2003) added e-Marketing (eM) practice that various researchers
began to use the CMP framework to study the operationalization of eM in marketing
practice. Whilst initial studies showed a low incidence of eM adoption, more recent
investigations have found that not only has there been an increase in the penetration of
eM in firms, but that firms adopting eM are also likely to show an improvement in
marketing performance (Barwise and Farley, 2005; Brodie et al., 2007).
In this paper we review both the historical and contemporary situation in relation to
ICTs within the CMP framework. The first two sections reviews the early years of
IT/ICT deployment and the inclusion of eM and ICT within the CMP framework,
respectively. We briefly discuss the need to further integrate ICT within the CMP
framework and argue that CMP researchers need to expand their research agenda to
more explicitly and more centrally address pragmatic concerns regarding ICT
deployment in marketing and by marketers. This would actively and constructively
support the development of ICT enabled future marketing practice. We also discuss the
need to address issues related to the skill sets necessary for marketers to successfully
implement and use ICTs in their work.

ICT: The Early Years

E Business or e-Commerce was often used to denote a limited adoption of ICT and
equated with an organization having a website and/or selling products and/or services
via the Internet. Beyond the somewhat limiting boundaries of the e-Commerce label,
agreement developed that as new ICT developments evolve basic assumptions about
organization, structure (Hagel and Singer 1999; Child and McGrath 2001), and form
(networked and virtual) (Webster 1992; 1998; Achrol and Kotler 1999) would need to
be revisited. Arguments that the evolution of marketing practices would be driven to a
significant extent by the use of ICT abounded, and marketing’s continuing and future
development was seen by many as closely intertwined with technological issues
(Deighton, 1996; Mintzberg, 1995 and McKenna, 1998;2002) Academics and
practitioners coined terms to try to capture this development, including ‘one to one
marketing’ (McKenna 1998); ‘web based’ marketing (Loebbecke and Jelassi 1997);
‘permission marketing’ (Godin 1999); or terms which suggest that it is a new form of
business (eCommerce or eBusiness); or even a type of marketing (emarketing). Brady et
al. (2002) suggest that the spelling of marketing should be changed to MarkITing to
reflect the widespread use of ICT in contemporary marketing practice. Holland and

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

Naude (2004) argued that marketing should be viewed as an information handling
problem due to the central role of ICT.

The 1990s were marked by spectacular ICT failures and major ICT problems, and even
substantial investments into ICT initiatives within the marketing arena resulted in few
success stories (Chen and Ching, 2004). Many efforts to gain efficiencies and
profitability from the introduction of ICTs, such as the internet (Deeter-Schmelz and
Kennedy, 2004), sales force automation (Speier and Venkatesh, 2002; Geiger and
Turley, 2005), EDI, Marketing Information Systems (Li, 1995), databases (Desai et al.
1998), or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (Chen and Ching, 2004) did not
live up to initial expectations. McAfee (2006) observed that over €130 billion of ICT
projects have had to be abolished. For much of the past two decades, marketing
embraced ICT either with a ‘me too’ or a ‘wait and see’ approach. It was slower than
other functions to adopt ICT, and deployed it predominantly for productivity or
automational purposes focused on routine or tactical activities (Domegan and
Donaldson, 1994; Leverick et al., 1998; Bruce et al., 1996). Despite the hype in the
popular press during the 1990s about the revolutionary possibilities of ICT-enabled
transformation, it appears ICT assimilation in marketing occurred in a more
evolutionary and measured fashion that reflects the earlier stages of Zuboff’s (1988)
stages theory of ICT assimilation (which includes automation, information and
transformation). According to this theory, successful ICT deployment for automation
and the increasing importance of information for operations (see also Holland and
Naude, 2004) will drive companies to the transformational stage. Thus, use of ICT by
marketing should increase now and into the future.
Still, marketers were and are challenged by emerging ICT possibilities. Nolan (1998)
noted that it was apparent that most companies could manage the automation nature of
the extant computerisation, but that strategic or transformational use of ICT and higher-
level decision making was creating major problems. This situation was compounded by
uncertainty about optimal technologies for marketing operations (McDonald and
Wilson, 1999). Many ICT investments lacked a strategic dimension (Willcocks, 1996;
Holtham, 1994) and focused on the rational/engineering perspectives. The more
transformational potential, considered and deployed ICTs possess, the more difficulties
emerge in implementation and in assessing their ultimate benefits (Brady et al., 2002;
Levy, 2001). Concurrent with the slowly expanding ICT assimilation during the 1990s,

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

some viewed marketing practice as in a state of change, redirection, and refocus. It was
described as searching for relevance and applicability, in need of a radical overhaul, and
fragmented with a variety of different approaches, methods, and theories abounding
(Murray et al., 2002; O’Driscoll, 1998; Brownlie et al., 1999; Day and Montgomery,
1999; Saren, 2000).

The increased use of ICT was encouraged by the arrival of relationship marketing in the
1990s (Webster, 1992, Gummesson, 2002). Relationship marketing which, in its
simplest form, is a progression from the dominant and often criticized traditional
transactional marketing mix 4p’s focus (Gronroos, 1997, Gummesson, 1987, 1998)
culminated in the CMP framework (Coviello et al. 1997) which suggested a pluralistic
approach incorporating both transactional and relational concerns. Most strategies for
relationship marketing, particularly within the consumer market, called for the extensive
use of ICT. Peppers et al. (1999, 2005) note that relationship marketing sets specific
ICT demands in the guise of databases and data warehouses, integrated cross function
systems, information systems containing standardized customer information, sales force
automation, web sites, call centres, and integrated mass-customization manufacturing
technology. Developments in ICT applications which provide linkages between
customers and companies, including asynchronous and synchronous interactions,
widespread computer networks and ongoing and rapid information processing
applications increase the role of ICT in establishing and maintaining relationships.
However, it has also become clear that ICT is crucial in transactional based marketing
as well (Brady et al., 2002). In summary, despite the much discussed potential of ICT
for marketing the last decades have seen a mostly slow and somewhat tentative adoption
of ICT by marketing practitioners. The next section reviews the integration of ICT into
marketing theory and the CMP framework.

e-Marketing and ICT within the CMP Framework

Initial iterations of the CMP framework did not explicitly include ICT as a separate
dimension for all marketing practices. Initial empirical findings, however, indicated
relevant linkages between technology deployment and type of industry (with for
example service industries increasingly deploying ICT for advertising and
communication). Coviello et al (1997) also reported that large, older consumer goods
companies with more sophisticated use of technology had a transactional perspective or

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

a database perspective. Industrial goods firms with low turnover usually had an
interactions perspective, while joint or foreign owned companies with sophisticated use
of technology operated a network perspective. Therefore, ICT use was related to the
level of development of relationship marketing. These early CMP findings indicate the
role of ICT in network development.
By 2001 Coviello et al. incorporated a more detailed ICT dimension in the CMP
framework. Their research indicates that different levels of IT integration and
deployment in the organization (see Orlikowski, 2000) have particular implications for
marketing practices. ICT was used in three ways. ICT was used to support/preserve
current marketing efforts: reinforces the status quo; ICT deployment was used to
extend/ improve existing marketing efforts: enhances the status quo; and ICT
application was use to redefine/drive the marketing efforts; transforms the status quo.
This iteration of the CMP framework included a fifth aspect of marketing practice
associated with IT-enabled interactivity. Coviello et al. (2001:26) termed this e-
Marketing (eM) and defined it as “using the Internet and other interactive technologies
to create and mediate dialogue between the firm and identified customers”. Through
this definition eM was characterized as being reliant on technology to enable
interactivity. A feature of this definition, say Coviello et al. (2001:26), is that “e-
Marketing encompasses one-to-one marketing and allows for mass customisation”.
The e-M approach is rarely central to firm’s marketing practices and only occurs in
conjunction with other marketing approaches (Coviello et al., 2001c). The data indicates
that while the practical application of interactive technologies appears to be in its
infancy, a strong positive relationship between database and e-Marketing practices can
be shown, with database marketing a possible precursor of e-M (Coviello at al., 2001c).
A follow up study of firms in New Zealand and the UK indicates that eM was clearly
associated with Database, Interaction and Network Marketing (Coviello et al. 2003) and
suggested that while all five CMP approaches can have an ICT dimension, only the e-M
approach has the potential for ICT use to transform marketing practices. Further
analysis of the relationship between the strategic role of ICT in the firm, found that 63%
of firms with low levels of eM use ICTs in a reinforcing role, whereas 80% of firms
with high levels of eM use ICTs to either reinforce or transform their organizational
status quo. Coviello et al. (2003:873) conclude that while the application of e-Marketing
may not ‘drive marketing practice’, it may be seen as a boundary spanning function and

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

may mean “that information technology’s ability to enable marketing practices is
related to the role that ITs play in the firm as a whole”.
Other studies provide further evidence that, despite low baselines, increasing numbers
of firms are moving beyond ICT deployment for automation or reinforcement only.
20% of firms studied in New Zealand and the UK (Brookes et al., 2004) and 13% of
hospitality firms in an Irish sample (O’Connor & Brady, 2006) indicated that they are
using ICT for transformational purposes. Brookes and colleagues (2004) report that
consumer goods companies are more heavily weighted toward the use of ICTs in
reinforcing or enhancing roles, while business-to-business firms are slightly more
heavily weighted toward the use of ICTs in a transforming role. This correlates to the
fact that eM penetration is higher for B2B service firms and export firms (Brodie, 2000;
see also Coviello et al., 2003, and Brookes et al. 2004).
In a recent CMP study of e-Marketing penetration involving 212 US-based firms in
2002 and 139 US-based firms in 2005, Brodie and colleagues (2007) compared the 2002
and 2005 results and conclude that eM is ‘starting to come of age’. In particular, they
believe that, with an increase from 63% to 71% of firms reporting ‘medium’ or ‘high’
levels of eM, “it can be concluded that eM is no longer ‘new’ but rather, is becoming
an established marketing practice within the majority of firms. While this level of
penetration is not as high as for the other marketing practices, it is approaching a
comparable level, especially for Database Marketing and Interaction marketing
”(Brodie et al., 2007) These authors show a strong positive relationship between eM
penetration and performance, especially ‘acquisition’ performance (such as sales growth
and new customers gained) and customer retention performance, and concur with Day
and Ben’s (2005) conclusions that firms adopting eM will perform better. Brodie et al.
(2007) also find that eM is emerging as a practice highly integrated with, and thus
enhancing and supporting, existing marketing practices, rather than becoming an
independent practice.
The above research highlights a trend to increasing deployment of ICT in marketing,
and the linkage between the levels of ICT use in organisations generally and its
transformational impact on marketing. In this context it appears appropriate to challenge
the originally useful but increasingly restrictive conceptualisation of eM, and to define a
broader, more comprehensive understanding of ICT deployment in marketing as well as
other linked organisational functions. The findings of research on ICT use in marketing
reviewed above indicate the need to reconceptualize ICT within the CMP framework.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

The increased ICT usage across all marketing practices, and the broad trend towards
more transformational use of ICT, need to be reflected by the CMP framework. Some of
this has already been done in the explicit recognition and integration of ICT as a central
horizontal axis in the CMP framework and in the deliberate inclusion of finer grained
data collection on ICT use as part of CMP studies (Brady et al., 2002 and see O’Connor
& Brady, 2006). Still, to fully reflect empirical results and to enable more targeted
future investigations, further theoretical development of the CMP framework that
explicates and elaborates on the role of ICT in current marketing practice, and in the
evolution of these practices, is required.

ICT and Marketing Practices: A Research Agenda

Beyond this need for continued theoretical elaboration of the CMP framework we
believe that the CMP research agenda regarding ICT needs to move beyond descriptive
studies of general technology use in marketing practice. As a starting point we want to
explicitly challenge the mental models underlying what CMP researchers have done and
currently do. Future research utilising the CMP framework should aim at providing the
basis for developing explanatory and prescriptive models of ICT deployment and other
contributions that provide guidance and value to marketing, business, and technology
practitioners in organizations. Rather than more descriptions of current practice we need
explanations of what ICT can and cannot do; we need models on how new ICTs can and
should be deployed to achieve intended results; and we need to identify the boundary
conditions that should guide the choice of different ICTs, and of different approaches to
ICT introduction and use in particular contexts. In short, we are calling on CMP
researchers to supply the impetus, the arguments, and the tools for more constructive
ICT deployment in marketing, and thus to provide leadership in the development of
future marketing practice.
To achieve this, CMP researchers need to review the benefits to marketing from ICT
use and improved marketing ability due to increased ICT. It is crucial to study best
practices and opportunities for increased consumer satisfaction and profitability.
Findings from such research can then be used to widen the scope of the current CMP
questionnaire with respect to ICT usage and impact. Too often companies increase their
use of ICT without regard for the impacts both internally and at the customer interface,
thus instigating a host of unintended consequences that can raise costs and /or cut
revenues. Myers and colleagues (2004) provide the example of ATM and web-based

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

transactions in retail banking which resulted in a 15% reduction in transaction costs but
also doubled the transaction volume with overall cost increases for servicing each
customer. Another example is the introduction of online bookings in the airline industry
which reduced distribution costs but lowered fares significantly due to the resulting
price transparency. We need to find out if – and how - ICT adds value to the company
and the customer from both informational and interactional perspectives.
Part of the challenge to marketing researchers working within the CMP framework is
the need to adopt more multidisciplinary perspectives. Specifically, research that
focuses on ICT use in marketing practices necessitates not only a recognition and
understanding of the linkages between marketing practitioners and technologists in the
introduction and use of ICT, but more fundamentally it also requires an appreciation of
the complex organisational context in which marketing’s ICT deployment is located.
One of the persistent findings in the reviewed literature is the fact that marketing
appears to lag behind other organizational functions in their adoption of ICT. As our
review above has indicated, a core reason for this adoption lag may well be the lack of
understanding about what and how ICT can serve marketing and business objectives.
Clearly, this and other potential reasons for marketing’s ICT adoption lag deserve more
theoretical and empirical attention which will provide important starting points for the
improvement of current marketing practices with regards to ICT.

Inclusion of ICT Management Skill Set in Marketing

We also believe, however, that it is not just uncertainty about the implications of ICT
use that have impeded marketers, but also a distinct gap in their typical skill set:
integrating ICT successfully in marketing requires marketers to take an active
managerial role far beyond their traditional areas of competence and authority. The
move to the transformational or enhancing stage is challenging for marketers though it
should be noted that virtually all firms anticipate they will be heavier users of ICTs in
the future. Brady et al. (2002) suggested that while efficiency gains are acceptable,
marketers still need to move toward the transformational or what Nolan calls the
‘network’ era. Successful deployment of ICT requires integration not just of technology
but also of technologists and other organizational functions into coherent and concerted
strategic and operational approaches to offering and delivering on value propositions for
customers (Fellenz & Brady, 2006).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

From today’s vantage point, we can also comment on the deficiency in marketers’
abilities to maximize the potential value of ICT deployment not simply because of a lag
in imagination, but because of a lack of sufficient insight and skills in appropriately
organizing and managing the deployment of advanced ICTs. Therefore part of the most
immediate requirements for marketers trying to deploy ICT more comprehensively is
the ability to constructively deal with the increased information processing and
analytical requirements (Fisher et al., 2000; Pickton, 2005; Holland and Naude, 2004).
ICT oriented marketing will rely less on experience, intuition and guesswork and much
more on the information provided by ICT systems monitoring every stage of the
product/service delivery through to consumption. The increased information provided
by ICT must be matched with the skills of marketers to analyze the data supplied
throughout the supply chain and across every facet of marketing. We argue that the
ways in which marketing is taught and practiced needs to reflect these critical changes
and developments. At present, the changing requirements for marketers are often
overlooked, and emerging opportunities are underutilized and underexploited within
organisations, in large part due to lack of skills rather than lack of technology. “In the
future expertise in information systems, database management, software development
and other technologies will become crucial’ for marketers. (Struse, 2000:5)
Beyond the specific ICT and technology management skills discussed, we also see two
additional areas in which marketers need to become much more adept in order to both
help integrate and deploy ICT in marketing practice, and to make ICT usage successful
from organisational and strategic perspectives. First, marketers need to recognize that
their task includes more that the traditional boundary spanning between firm and
external customers. While the role of marketers as proponents of customer views is still
central, they need to recognise that they can also contribute to their firms’ success by
helping to integrate the differing, at present too often competing technological (e.g.,
technologists in IT or R&D departments), economic (e.g., financially and shareholder-
value oriented managers in finance or similar functions), and customer-oriented (e.g.,
customer centric thinkers in marketing departments) perspectives
Second, marketers need to recognize that issues related to internal change management
underlying many of the findings from the CMP studies (Brookes et al, 2004). Huy
(2002) argues that middle managers are critical to the success of organizational change,
by being personally committed to championing the change and by attending to the
emotional reactions and concerns of others, especially subordinates. The responses in the

10

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

Brookes et al. (2004) CMP study suggest that mid-level managers are likely to be more
emotionally attuned to, and supportive of, ICT-related change that is more
transformational in character. By contrast, many firms may have sound strategic,
financial, or other reasons for currently investing in ICTs for reinforcement or
enhancement purposes. Marketers currently rarely have the skills and, in many
organizations, the political clout to ensure that the transformational potential of ICT can
be fully achieved.
Issues of strategic decision making and change management could be considered
integral to the internal relationship management within a firm. Whilst managing external
relationships are often a core responsibility, and a central part of the identity, of
marketers, internal relationship management is a relatively undeveloped construct,
Gummesson (2002) suggests more firms should focus on their internal “network of
relationships and projects” if ICT-enabled interactivity or wider ICT changes are to be
implemented smoothly. Jap and Mohr (2002) agree and state that “e-Commerce
technologies cannot be successfully leveraged without considering the organizational
relationships in which the technologies are being embedded”. This is an area that needs
further exploration in order for both academics and practitioners to better understand
both the underlying obstacles and the key criteria for success in ICT adoption (Day
1996).
In summary, future research on ICT deployment and use within the CMP framework
needs to address the skill set required to enable marketers to successfully participate in,
or even to lead, the cross-functional challenge of ICT selection, implementation, and
use. Contemporary marketing practices rarely include such activities, and the CMP
framework would benefit from more explicit inclusion of this aspect of marketers
reality. A concerted consideration of a wider range of required tasks -- and the requisite
skills to accomplish them – will necessarily lead to the need to more explicitly include
relevant management skills in the traditional marketing skill set. Moreover, we believe
that organizational and political skills must also be considered and included in this to
enable marketers to create and use appropriate organisational arrangements that can
support their central role in deploying ICT to create value for both their organisations
and customers (Fellenz & Brady, 2006). Such research can help to ensure that marketers
have the skill set required for the ICT dominated networked business environment in
increasingly global marketplaces.

11

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

Conclusion
This paper reviews the historical and current deployment of ICT into marketing
practice. It uniquely focused on the CMP framework of marketing practice and within
that on the original conceptions of eMarketing within the CMP framework and the
corresponding empirical results from various CMP research projects. Reviewing the
role of ICT we conclude that regardless of the dominant focus of marketing within an
organisation, marketing practitioners increasingly have an ICT requirement within their
marketing practice. This paper calls for a more substantive research agenda exploring
the expanded role of ICT in marketing, the further development of ICT in the
framework and the exploration of the relevant management and organisational skills
sets for marketers. ICT is now not only a normal but a central part of marketing
practice and it is important that marketing academics identify, understand, and cater to
the conceptual, theoretical and educational requirements of those practitioners that try to
successfully deploy an increasingly large range of complex ICTs both internally in their
organizations, and at the customer interface.
In conclusion, the CMP framework to date has been reflective of contemporary issues
and the ICT orientation of its time. It now needs to be updated to capture the expanded
technological development to allow researchers to study the contemporary and often
global environment. It also needs to be reflective of and responsive to the current and
also ongoing and relentless ICT innovations and the changes in marketing practice and
to encourage the development of ICT specific skill sets for marketing practitioners.

References:

Achrol, R., & Kotler, P. (1999), “Marketing in the Network Economy”, Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 63 (Special Issue), pp. 146-163.

Barwise, P., & Farley, J. (2005), “Marketplace: The State of Interactive Marketing in
Seven Countries: Interactive Marketing Comes of Age”, Journal of Interactive
Marketing, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 67-80.

Brady, M., & Saren, M. (2005), “A Framework for ICT within Contemporary
Marketing Practice: The Information and Interaction Dimensions”, paper presented at
the Academy of Marketing (UK) Conference, Dublin.

Brady, M., Saren, M., & Tzokas, N. (1999), “The impact of IT on marketing: an
evaluation”, Management Decision, Vol. 37 No. 10, pp. 758-767.

12

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

Brady, M., Saren, M., & Tzokas, N. (2002), “Integrating Information Technology into
Marketing Practice - The IT Reality of Contemporary Marketing Practice”, Journal of
Marketing Management, Vol. 18 No. 5-6, pp. 555-577.

Brodie, R. (2000), “Contemporary marketing practice: Factors that are Shaping

Change”, paper presented at the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy
conference, Auckland.

Brodie, R., Winklhofer, H., Coviello, N., et al. (2008), “Is e-Marketing Coming of Age?
An Examination of the Penetration of eM and Firm Performance”, Journal of
Interactive Marketing (in press).

Brookes, R., Brodie, R., Coviello, N., et al. (2004), “How Managers Perceive the
Impacts of Information Technologies on Contemporary Marketing Practices
Reinforcing, Enhancing or Transforming?”, Journal of Relationship Marketing, Vol. 3
No. 4, pp. 7-26.

Brownlie, D., Saren, M., Wensley, R., et al. (1999), Rethinking marketing: towards
critical marketing accountings, Sage, London.

Bruce, M., Leverick, F., Littler, D., et al. (1996), “The Changing Scope and Substance
of Marketing: The impact of IT”, paper presented at the 25th European Marketing
Academy conference, Budapest.

Chen, J., & Ching, R. (2004), “An Empirical Study of the Relationship of IT Intensity
and Organizational Absorptive Capacity on CRM Performance”, Journal of Global
Information Management, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 1-17.

Child, J., & McGrath, R. (2001), “Organizations Unfettered: Organizational Form in an

Information Intensive Economy”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 44 No. 6,
pp. 1135-1148.

Coviello, N., Brodie, R., & Munro, H. (1997), “Understanding contemporary marketing:
development of a classification scheme”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 13
No. 6, pp. 501-22.

Coviello, N., Brodie, R., Brookes, R., et al. (2003), “Assessing the Role of e-Marketing
in Contemporary Marketing Practice”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 19
No. 7-8, pp. 857-881.

Coviello, N., Brodie, R., Danaher, P., et al. (2002), “How Firms Relate to Their
Markets: An Empirical Examination of Contemporary Marketing Practices”, Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 66 No. 3, pp. 33-46.

Coviello, N., Milley, R., & Marcolin, B. (2001), “Understanding IT-enabled

interactivity in contemporary marketing”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 15
No. 4, pp. 18-33.

13

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

Desai, C., Wright, G., & Fletcher, K. (1998), “Barriers to Successful Implementation of
Database Marketing: A Cross-Industry Study”, International Journal of Information
Management, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 265-276.

Day, G., & Bens, K. (2005), “Capitalizing on the internet opportunity”, The Journal of
Business and Industrial Marketing, Vol. 20 No. 4-5, pp. 160-168.

Day, G., & Montgomery, D. (1999), “Charting New Directions for Marketing”, Journal
of Marketing, 63 (Special Issue), pp. 3-13.

Deeter-Schmelz, D., & Kennedy, K. (2004), “Buyer-seller relationships and information

sources in an e-commerce world”, The Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing,
Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 188-196.

Domegan, B., & Donaldson, B. (1994), “Customer service and information

technology”, in Lambkin, M., and Meenaghan, T., (Eds) Perspectives on marketing
management in Ireland, Oak Tree Press, Dublin, pp. 100-119.

Fellenz, M., & Brady, M. (2006), “Why the Tail Should Not Wag the Dog: Integrating
the Deployment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Service
Innovation and Delivery”, paper presented at the Irish Academy of Management Annual
Meeting, Cork.

Geiger, S., & Turley, D. (2005), “Personal Selling as Knowledge-Based Activity:

Communities of Practice in the Sales Force”, Irish Journal of Management, Vol. 26
No. 1, pp. 61-71.

Godin, S. (1999), Permission marketing: turning strangers into friends, and friends into
customers, Simon & Schuster, New York.

Grönroos, C. (1997), “Keynote paper: From marketing mix to relationship marketing

towards a paradigm shift in marketing”, Management Decision, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 322-
339.

Gummesson, E. (1987), “The new marketing developing long-term interactive

relationships”, Long Range Planning, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 10-20.

Gummesson, E. (1998), “Implementation requires a relationship marketing paradigm”,

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 242-249.

Gummesson, E. (2002), “Relationship marketing in the new economy”, Journal of

Relationship Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 37-57.

Hagel, J., & Singer, M. . (1999), “Unbundling the Corporation”, Harvard Business
Review, Vol. 77 No. 2, pp. 133-142.

Holland, C., & Naudé, P. (2004), “The metamorphosis of marketing into an

information-handling problem”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 19
No. 3, pp. 167-177.

14

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

Holtham, C. (1994), IT in Marketing, Alfred Waller in association with UNICOM,
Henley on Thames.

Leverick, F., Littler, D., Wilson, D., et al. (1997), “The role of IT in the reshaping of
marketing”, Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, Vol. 3 No. 2,
pp. 87-106.

Leverick, F., Littler, D., Bruce, M., et al. (1998), “Using Information Technology
Effectively: A Study of Marketing Installations”, Journal of Marketing Management,
Vol. 14 No. 8, pp. 927-962.

Li, E. (1995), “Marketing information systems in the top US companies: a longitudinal

analysis”, Information and Management, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 13-31.

Loebbecke, C., & Jelassi, T. (1997), “Concepts and Technologies for Virtual
Organizing: the Gerling Journey”, European Management Journal, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp.
138-146.

McDonald, M., & Wilson, H. (1999), “Improving Marketing Effectiveness through IT”,
Cranfield Management Research Series - working paper, pp. 30-45.

McKenna, R. (1999), “Real-time marketing”, The Harvard Business Review Book

Series, pp. 145-158.

Myers, J. Pickersgill, A and Van Meter, S (2004) Steering customer to the right channel,
McKinsey Quarterly, 4., pp 36-47

Murray, J., O'Driscoll, A., & Torres, A. (2002), “Discovering diversity in marketing
practice”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 373-390.

Nolan, R. (1973), “Computer Data Bases: The Future is Now”, Harvard Business
Review, Vol. 51 No. 5, pp. 98-114.

Nolan, R. (1998), “Connectivity and control in the year 2000 and beyond” Harvard
Business Review, July-August, pp. 3-14.

O’Connor, M., & Brady, M. (2006), “The Hotel Sector In Ireland – Technology-Based
Marketing Enterprises?”aper presented at the Irish Academy of Management
Conference, Cork.

O'Driscoll, A. (1998), “The art and science of direct marketing”, in Lawlor, M., and
Keane, J., (Eds) Direct Marketing in Ireland, Oak Tree Press, Dublin, pp. 9-40.

Orlikowski, W. (2000), “Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice

Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations”, Organization Science, Vol. 11 No. 4,
pp. 404-428.

Peppers, D., Rogers, M., & Dorf, B. (1999), “Is your company ready for one-to-one
marketing?”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 77 No. 1, pp. 151-60.

15

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302

Pickton, D., (2005) ‘Left Brain Marketing Planning: a Forrester Research viewpoint’,
Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol.23, Issue 6/7, Pg.537-542

Saren, M. (2000), “Marketing Theory”, in Baker, M., (Ed) Marketing Theory: A

Student Text, Thomson Business Press, London, pp. 21-42.

Schlegelmilch, B., & Sinkovics, R. (1998), “Viewpoint: marketing in the information

age can we plan for an unpredictable future?”, International Marketing Review, Vol.
15 No. 3, 162-170.

Shaw, R. (1994), “How to Transform Marketing Through IT”, Business Intelligence,

London.

Speier, C., & Venkatesh, V. (2002), “The Hidden Minefields in the Adoption of Sales
Force Automation Technologies”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 66 No. 3, pp. 98-111.

Struse, D. (1999), “Marketing Research's Top 25 Influences”, Marketing Research,

Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 4-10.

Webster, F. (1992), “The Changing Role of Marketing in the Corporation”, Journal of

Marketing, Vol. 56 No. 4, pp. 1-17.

Webster, F. (1998), “Interactivity and marketing paradigm shifts”, Journal of

Interactive Marketing, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 54-60.

Willcocks, L. (1996), Investing in information systems: evaluation and management,

Chapman & Hall, London.

Zuboff, S. (1988), In the age of the smart machine: the future of work and power,
Heinemann Professional Publishing, Oxford.

16

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=989302