Institutionalization of marketing at the beginning of the 20th century: Ralph S. Butler´s Marketing Methods as study case

Abstract

This article analyzes the use of philosophical and scientific methods applied in the early studies on marketing in the United States in the first decade of the 20th century to solve the distribution problems associated with the second Industrial Revolution. For this purpose, we analyzed in Marketing Methods, by Ralph Starr Butler, the methods used to establish the laws of marketing, which was grounded on the philosophical and scientific thought of that time. Butler describes a method of division and classification of phenomena crystallized in the form of a procedures manual for practitioners in the field. This format was common in the works of the period and allowed for the independence of marketing from better-established areas and granted to it respectability in the university and entrepreneurial environments.