Marketing professionals: a managerial perspective

The marketing literature intensively has debated in the last decade the evolution of marketing, the shifting framework, the challenges it faces as well as the relationship to management. The technological development, the changing patterns in consumption, the economic crises, as well as the increased business constraints are some of the most important factors that are changing the way marketing is developed. In the new economic context, managers seem to be increasingly more dissatisfied with their marketers, considering them attached too much to qualitative results, on the expenses of financial outcomes. Considering these evolutions and discussions, the present paper investigates how the Romanian managers evaluate their marketers. In-depth interviews are conducted with managers from all sorts of companies, considering both their fields of involvement and their dimensions. The results largely confirm the studies around the world, as well as the concerns expressed by academics.