Marketing Systems – Looking Backward, Sizing up and Thinking Ahead

This commentary is a personal account of the evolution of the concept of a marketing system, from being central to the vision of macromarketing inspiring a group of scholars nearly 60 years ago, to playing a central role today in bringing together the rich set of ideas, concepts, frameworks and concerns that are part of contemporary macromarketing thought. It provides a basis for, and indeed, argues for, the integration of both marketing and macromarketing thinking in practice and in teaching in response to the micro and macro challenges facing managers and policy makers in most human communities as they seek to find a way through increasingly complex environments shaped by physical, social, economic, and technological forces interacting though space and time at all levels of society. It was written to serve as the introduction to a SAGE Publications virtual book concerned with the past, present and future of thinking and practice related to marketing systems.