ABSTRACT
The order of consideration reviews the prescriptive writings on marketing structuring, and secondly to compare these to the available empirical evidence. This leads then to an analysis of the information processing characteristics of structure, and the implications for power and politics. The functional marketing structure is perhaps the commonest conceptualisation of marketing organisation. It is arguable that such structures are common because they fit so easily into the overall design of the company and it has been suggested that functional designs are the oldest, simplest and the soundest form of organization for marketing. It is interesting to speculate that such processes may be at work in forming, locating and breaking up the export department. In terms of that analysis, the definition of marketing subsystems amounts to the formation of centres of authority and formal power and the establishment of the framework for the extension of that power and for communication channels and the use of political influence.
