Marketing perceptions and business performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze associations between practitioners' perception of marketing and business performance, and discuss possible implications for marketing education. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted in Norwegian companies in the furniture and fishery sectors. The relationship between practitioners' perceptions of marketing and business performance is analysed by combining ordinal regression with cluster analysis. The latter is used to categorize practitioners' views of marketing. Findings The results indicate that the cluster to which a firm belongs makes a difference in business performance. Firms that share a common view of marketing, strongly focused on both core marketing and sales, perform better than firms that share a more narrow view of marketing. Thus, both “intrinsic” and “instrumental” aims may be important to any core curriculum for marketing education. Research limitations/implications Even though the data set accounts for a large percentage of the two selected sectors in terms of total turnover, the sample itself is small. Practical implications Vocational skills such as sales management should be an integrated part of marketing education. Financial accountability and customer profitability analyses should preferably also be included. Originality/value This study of the relationships between practitioners' perceptions of marketing and business performance, by combining cluster analysis and ordinal regression, is a new and valuable approach in this context. The findings have also important practical implications for marketing education.