An analysis of the international scientific production on contemporary marketing practices

Abstract

Contemporary marketing practices entail strategies such as customer relationship, interactive marketing, big data and digital marketing, going beyond traditional tactics. We conducted a bibliometric study of the international scientific production through 2016 to provide an update of the advances in the field, and developed a documentary survey for this exploratory and descriptive study using a qualitative and quantitative approach. The content analysis and thematic categorization identified 42 articles by 101 authors from 49 universities and 23 countries, and twelve small groups of authors. The average output is wanting, though works such as Coviello et al. (2002) are considered highly relevant. The study shows that contemporary marketing practices research is predominantly empirical, qualitative and exploratory; data collection occurs through surveys, in-depth interviews and documentary analysis. The study´s theoretical contribution and academic relevance stem from the definition of the characteristics of extant research, and by the research agenda for future studies.