ABSTRACT
Within the critical approach, the issue of relevance and impact is frequently seen as problematic. This is particularly true of fields such as management and marketing, where relevance itself has often been defined in a restricted manner to imply usefulness as measured by a sub-group of either practitioners or self-selected intermediaries. Other writers however have provided more useful approaches, such as Burawoy (2004) with his analysis of differing audiences and purposes and Eldridge (1986) with his notion of differences between congenial and critical relevance. Developing on these approaches and the related notion of audience, we can recognize there are also questions to be asked about the basis and purpose of critical approaches in marketing.
