Virtual special issue: reflections on the relationships between power, knowledge and marketplace agency

Marketing theory has long been a champion of studies that seek to engage with the nature of knowledge about marketing, the ways in which it is mobilised and its role in the legitimation of certain ways of reflecting on interpersonal relations and the social world (Bettany et al., 2010; Jafari et al., 2012; Marion, 2006; O’Reilly, 2006; Tadajewski, 2006). Within this virtual special issue, the contributions to these intertwined debates range across the paradigmatic spectrum. We include the insights of those who take a more conventional perspective on the topic of knowledge production, seeking to advance the science of marketing, produce knowledge for marketing managers, and who stress the need for consensus on key concepts and principles (e.g. Rossiter, 2001; Midgley, 2002). Such epistemological reflections are valuable provided that they do not become totalising, proffering their own viewpoint as necessarily the most advantageous without being willing to debate and engage with the challenges offered by alternative perspectives (Brodie et al., 1997; Kilbourne, 1998; Maclaran et al., 2009; Marsden and Littler, 1996; Palmer and Ponsonby, 2002; Tadajewski, 2010).