ABSTRACT
In common with many other professions, the practice of marketing is often made complex and difficult due to the sheer diversity of the problems with which it is confronted. To a large degree, this diversity is due to the fact that the principal actors in exchange processes are people, or organizations comprised of people, and so exhibit the dynamic and interactive behaviour associated with human beings. If human beings rarely became unwell only from a small range of causes, we would have a need for many fewer doctors than at present. Similarly, if disagreements between parties leading to litigation were limited in their origins, then we would have a need for many fewer lawyers. However, like marketing, these two professions have to deal with an enormous variety of factors which might give rise to a need for medical care or litigation. Accordingly, all professions have a need for diagnostic frameworks which help them isolate the most likely causes of the problem to be solved, so that these may become the focus of detailed examination.
