Welcome to the home page of the international research project ‘Marketing in the 21st Century’ or ‘MC21’ for short. The project was born out of mutually interest by a group of marketing scholars in the identification of marketing resources (in particular marketing capabilities and marketing assets) and their impact on marketing performance. Pilot studies in the UK and Austria then quickly escalated to fieldwork in over 15 countries round the world, enabling a unique snap-shot to be taken of marketing approaches and methods at the start of the 21st Century.

Our approach has been to welcome new collaborators who wish to share our methodology and pool results to enable comparisons to be made between countries, regions and cultural groups. In each country collaborators first conduct in-depth interviews with managers to pilot the research instruments used and to identify any modifications needed to account for local differences. A questionnaire is then constructed using the common core questionnaire for the project (LINK) with adaptations for the local conditions. Sampling is undertaken based on quotas for firm size (small, medium and large), industry (goods, services) and market type (consumer, B2B). Data are then checked for equivalence with the existing data base and integrated for comparisons as appropriate. The data base currently includes over 5,600 firms from 13 countries. Fieldwork is close to completion in two other countries and planned in a further three.

This website contains a number of items relating to the project. In the public areas are links to papers (working, published and pending) explaining the theoretical framework used and testing the models used. Also publicly available are the questionnaire and methodology notes. Finally, lists of colleagues involved in the project are provided along with contact details. For members of the project the private area contains work in progress, data files and discussion boards.

We hope you find the website useful and interesting. Any suggestions for improvement gratefully received!

Graham Hooley & Gordon Greenley
Project Directors