Marketing-related failures: review, synthesis, and new research agenda

Purpose – Despite an increasing number of marketing-related failures occurring in both advanced and developing countries, accompanied by a growing body of research on the subject, there persists a fragmented debate and a lack of scholarly discourse. The purpose of this paper is to map the state of knowledge on marketing-related failures, identify common themes, gaps, and inconsistencies, and propose a new framework and directions for future research.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a broad category of approaches to mobilize and analyze the current body of literature. Numerous databases were searched using keywords which denote aspects of failure to identify articles considered for inclusion. The analysis takes stock of methods, data sources and theories used by past studies to develop a conceptual framework linking the current empirical and
theoretical research.
Findings – We present an extensive review of the literature on marketing-related business failure to advance the underpinning “theory” of multiple failures in and around organizations. The conceptualization sheds new light on a range of causes, effects, and outcomes of failure. Our review outlines viable pathways for
eliminating the lack of clarity and lack of depth in current literature. The implications for industrial marketing research are proposed.
Practical implications – This paper is valuable for academics and practitioners interested in understanding causes, effects, prevention and redressing of business failure.
Originality/value – The study provides new conceptualization of business failure in and around organizations and suggests avenues for future research that fill existing gaps to enhance the business failure literature.