ABSTRACT
Top management must recognise the multidimensionality of the resource allocation process ••• Ignoring the impact on planning and investment of formal organization, systems of management, information, and reward and punishment is a sure way of generating serious problems. 'Politics' is not a pathology, it is a fact of large organization. Top management must manage its influence on 'political' processes and then monitor the results of its performance. (Bower, 1970)
This said, it is undoubtedly true that at best many marketing analysts' response to this thesis will be 'convinced, but uncomfortable' (Pfeffer, 1981), si nce the concepts of power and politics constitute such an affront to the managerial ideology of rationality in decision making which has been imported into marketing theory (Anderson, 1982). In particular, there is an underlying assumption that decisions based on power and politics will be inferior to those using more 'scientific' or 'rational' criteria.
