Exploring marketing control mechanisms from a strategy perspective

Purpose Management is constantly looking for ways to show how exactly the competitive advantage can be enhanced to achieve the desired results. As such, control mechanisms that are designed to ensure that the desired results are achieved play an important part in the successful implementation of a business strategy, which is why, in this study, the authors analyze how formal and informal control levels are deduced from the marketing decisions that operationalize the organizational strategy. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a cross-section survey among 301 marketing managers. To determine which types of strategies are prevalent, the authors performed a hierarchical cluster analysis using the IBM SPSS Statistics 24 software and then constructed an ANOVA table to see whether there are differences in the characteristics of the different clusters. To determine the configuration of marketing control across strategy typologies, the authors conducted a mean difference test, aligning marketing control mechanisms with the strategies under study, significantly changing the intensity levels from one to another. Findings It is worth emphasizing that higher levels of control are related to prospector strategic business units (SBUs) and that informal control was significantly more prevalent than formal control for all the strategy typologies the authors' studied. Originality/value This research provides empirical evidence to gain a better understanding of the role marketing decisions play on formal and informal control mechanisms.