ABSTRACT
For the past 20 years, there has been an energetic debate throughout the marketing scientific community concerning a possible change of paradigm (Dholakia and Arndt, 1985; Littler and Tynan, 2005; Sheth and Sisodia, 2006; Vargo and Lusch, 2004), in which a great majority of authors using a relatively top-down approach argue about the reasons of an evolution from one perspective to another. These authors, often distinguished academics, identify and discuss a change of paradigm and its resulting implications in developing certain positions with respect to the theory and practice of marketing, sometimes describing in detail the models, the methods and even the tools. In particular, this is the case in the transition from a transactional perspective to a relational perspective in marketing (Gronröos, 1997; Gummesson, 1997).
