Marketing's strategic influence in Australian firms: A review and survey

In recent years, a large body of literature has bemoaned the lack of influence of the marketing function within organizations. Yet, there is limited evidence to support or reject claims of a crisis of influence of marketing subunits. This paper reviews the extant literature and discusses survey data regarding perceptions of marketing's influence relative to other departments. The study employs data from senior managers in medium and large Australian firms. Marketing departments are found to be influential vis-à-vis other functional areas, thus suggesting that marketing is rather healthy in Australian organizations. The key findings are also compared to the results of previous studies that have employed US and European data, and further evidence pertaining to CEO background, marketing training and marketing's communication channels are presented. The paper discusses the implications of the findings and presents a number of future research directions.