Teaching and Researching Interface Marketing: A critique and Some Alternatives

Initially this article attempts to define “interface” marketing and discusses the implications for teaching and researching at the interface. It debates the accepted wisdom of the foundation literatures of marketing and entrepreneurship and their contribution to knowledge and understanding at the interface. After an outline review of management and marketing management decision making, entrepreneurial characteristics and motivations according to the literature, the discussion and conclusions indicate that only loose support can be found for the “conventional” wisdom outlined in these literatures. An empirical study is described which examines the nature of entrepreneurial/owner-manager decision making relating to his/her overall business activities, and some conclusions about the differences between theory and practice in this context are given.