In a book dealing with the art of creative management, Gareth
Morgan cites a common view of marketers:
They're peacocks …all show; no real substance. They look good; people like to watch; but they serve no useful purpose. Irish setters… very good looking dogs. But not very intelligent at all. They've no real knowledge.1
On the other hand, there is an argument that marketing is a source of competitive ability, economic growth, and wealth creation.
A fundamental question that we should be asking is:
If governments can no longer fix world markets, nor guarantee national market shares, who decides what the standards of quality, service and value are? Who decides who wins and loses?
The answer is obvious: the customer.
When we talk about new world competitive order it becomes obvious that customer choice, preference and demand are its exclusive driving forces. What we have come to call 'customer science' is pivotal. That, of course, is marketing. Marketing is, above all, a philosophy enshrining a long-term commitment to customer satisfaction and the deployment of a set of intense skills to achieve it. By definition, therefore, marketing is the key to profitable growth and must form part and parcel of every business operation.2
Therefore you can see that this latter perspective is based on the belief that marketing can provide a better understanding and assessment of the marketplace, including customers and competitive behaviour.
When undertaking your reading for this topic, keep in mind that the aims and objectives adopted by firms may lack sufficient attention to innovative and entrepreneurial thinking owing to attention on short-term financial results and institutionalised aversion to risk.
Some useful questions to be thinking of
As a complement to some of the readings in this chapter, issues related to mission determination can best be explained by identifying several of the broad question areas often asked of the organisation. These include the following:
 What business is the company in? (A functional approach can be useful at this point. Do we sell ice cream or fun? Do we sell financial products or offer you an opportunity to lead the life you desire?
 Who are your company's customers? What are their needs?
Why do they buy from us?
 What are your company's resources, strengths, and weaknesses? What assets does the company have in terms of people, products, reputation, etc?
 What are your company's major opportunities and threats?
Where can the company apply its resources most profitably?
What are the most vulnerable areas?
 What rate of growth appears best for your company? This should include a clear delineation of specific numbers with regard to the rate of growth in sales, profit, and return on investment.  What share of market is best for your company? This opens up the question of market position.
 What is your company's attitude to risk and stability? Seeking higher returns usually entails more risk.
Marketing and Economic Development
In 1989 Francis Fukuyama, with the financial support of the RAND
Corporation, a conservative think tank based in the United States, proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy.3
In the real world, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the satellite system of the Soviet Union, viewed as the synthetic result of the end of the so-called Cold War and the demise of communism, supported Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis. This post-ideological society envisioned by Fukuyama was based on a mixture of capitalism, democracy, and materialism.
In many respects, the management guru Peter Drucker put forward similar sentiments forty years earlier in an essay titled "Markets and economic development"4.
He says that the development of marketing makes economic integration possible, as well as the fullest utilisation of assets and productive capacity and economy possesses. It mobilises latent economic energy. In addition, Drucker says that marketing is essential in order to remedy the inequality among nations. As such it is interesting to note that marketing was viewed as the "under developed" part of the economy of under-developed nations.

Some International Concerns
On the other hand, in December 1999 a coalition of passionate environmentalists, trade union members, church groups, and organized anarchists, took part in demonstrations to disrupt the meeting of the World Trade Organization. The Seattle riots represented the latest example of a rising anti-corporation sentiment in the U.S. The people chanted "Hey, hey. Ho, ho, the
WTO has to go" protesting against deforestation, geneticallymodified food, labour standards in Third World countries, and the threat to the shrimp turtle. The location of Seattle was appropriate as it was the very paradigm of the so-called New Economy. Many of the protestors were its willing beneficiaries and active participants.
It seems that much of the organisation of the protests was carried out over the Internet. During this time, two main groups with different grievances competed for attention: unions and other organisations that fear world trade is a plot to replace American workers with cheap foreign labour; and a host of environmental and human rights groups that see the relentless economic development represented by free trade as trampling on the poor and the Earth's dwindling resources.

Consumer sovereignty and free choice
It is important for us to consider the link between consumer sovereignty and free choice, because it is a central and wellentrenched theme in marketing.5
Consumer sovereignty, of course, concerns the satisfaction of consumer needs as an ultimate aim of the entire capitalist system.
Underpinning this system is the over-riding belief that the individual's needs are best known by him, and that he is in the best position to exercise this right by making actual choices. Therefore, it is not surprising that in many respects, marketers see themselves as the democrats of the business world and the supporters of the view that in the long run, business will be profitable only if they satisfy consumer needs. Yet Micklethwait and Wooldridge, who work for the Economist, believe that the globalisation case needs to be reiterated, stressing its link to the cause of liberty.