A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Marketing Strategy Cases

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to report on the development of a conceptual framework which can be helpful to students when analyzing a marketing strategy case. The conceptual framework was developed in order to help students (1) know what information to dig out of a case; (2) identify key issues and assumptions; (3) apply learning from case to case; and (4) build theories of why certain strategies work in certain situations. The framework was empirically tested on twenty cases from twelve industries to determine how well it captured the key elements needed for the analysis of a case. The results indicated that both teachers and students will find the conceptual framework to be a very useful tool for, gaining a better understanding of marketing strategy situations and for analyzing alternative marketing strategies.