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‘The Complete English Tradesman’ – business relations, trust, and honesty or ‘let’s rethink the history of relationship marketing’

Tadajewski, M.

‘The Complete English Tradesman’ – business relations, trust, and honesty or ‘let’s rethink the history of relationship marketing’ Thumbnail


Authors

M. Tadajewski



Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to provide a close reading of Daniel Defoe’s The Complete English Tradesman. It makes a case that many of the themes that Defoe engages with are consistent with later arguments offered by relationship marketing scholars. Design/methodology/approach – This is a close reading of one of Defoe’s most popular texts, The Complete English Tradesman. It links this discussion with relationship marketing tenets. Findings – Defoe pays considerable attention to key relational ideas, including the cultivation of a public perception of business honesty, the need to cater to customer requirements, treating the customer as the “idol” of the practitioner and undertaking a variety of actions to ensure that consumers trust the words and actions of the tradesman. Practical implications – This paper highlights how ahistorical debates surrounding relationship marketing have been and calls for a return to the archives. Originality/value – This paper supplements existing research that charts the implications for marketing thought of Defoe’s work, extending this via a juxtaposition of his writing with relational tenets.

Citation

Tadajewski, M. (2015). ‘The Complete English Tradesman’ – business relations, trust, and honesty or ‘let’s rethink the history of relationship marketing’. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 7(3), 407-422. https://doi.org/10.1108/jhrm-04-2015-0012

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 21, 2015
Publication Date Aug 1, 2015
Deposit Date Apr 21, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of Historical Research in Marketing
Print ISSN 1755-750X
Publisher Emerald
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 7
Issue 3
Pages 407-422
DOI https://doi.org/10.1108/jhrm-04-2015-0012
Keywords Biography, History of marketing thought, History of selling.

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Accepted Journal Article (309 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
This article is © Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here http://dro.dur.ac.uk/15438/. Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.




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