A brief review of marketing accountability, and a research agenda

Purpose – This paper aims to review previous work in the domain of marketing accountability, an issue which has become of increasing concern to chief executive and financial officers. It principal purpose is to attempt an elementary epistemology, with a view to setting a research agenda for scholars in finance, microeconomics or marketing.Design/methodology/approach – The paper consists of a relatively catholic literature review of the domain of marketing accountability, exploring its antecedents in related domains such as strategy and finance and then proposing a research agenda.Findings – Much confusion exists in the literature about the dimensions of marketing accountability. This review specifies a researchable model of the domain of marketing and proposes three related areas – the micro‐promotional level, the strategic level and the financial, shareholder value added level and suggests an agenda for research for scholars.Research limitations/implications – Because of the enormous breadth of the relat...