Teaching Marketing Strategy: Using Resource-Advantage Theory as an Integrative Theoretical Foundation

Knowledge of marketing strategy is essential for marketing majors. To supplement and/or replace the traditional lecture-discussion approach, several pedagogical vehicles have been recommended to teach marketing strategy, including the analytic hierarchy process; career-planning cases; computer-assisted, simulated marketing cases; experiential projects; life-history analysis; product-management projects; scenario planning; shareholder-value analysis; simulation; Web-based cases; and Web-based business-intelligence tools. Each of these approaches incorporates marketing-strategy knowledge content that consists of concepts, theories, and conceptuaal frameworks. Noting that the approaches to teaching marketing strategy lack an overall, integrative theory, this article proposes (1) resource-advantage (R-A) theory as an appropriate, positive, integrative theoretical foundation for teaching marketing strategy, (2) several conceptual frameworks drawn from R-A theory that are useful in teaching marketing strategy, and (3) suggestions on how to approach teaching R-A theory in the classroom.