Attitudes of Practitioners and Students toward Marketing

Abstract

This research surveyed three groups: marketing practitioners, undergraduate marketing majors, and students taking their first course in marketing. Respondents' attitudes toward marketing as a societal force, marketing as a career, and various topic areas in marketing were assessed. The results indicated that practitioners hold more favorable attitudes toward marketing's role in society and toward marketing as a career than do students. Practitioners and students agreed on the relative importance of marketing topics. Most important topics were marketing strategy, advertising, buyer behavior, and the marketing concept; least important topics were industrial marketing, international marketing, nonbusiness and service marketing, and physical distribution.