Decision-Making in a Public Marketing Enterprise

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. Introduction CONASUPO (Companiia Nacional de Subsistencias Populares) is a vertically integrated distribution system for staple goods in Mexico.It is an autonomous, public enterprise, and it has broad policy formulation and implementation responsibilities as an agency for development. CONASUPO competes with private sector producers, wholesalers, and retailers, in addition to its special roles in economic and market development.It is the object of this article to describe how marketing decisions are made in CONASUPO. The environment within which market decisions are made in CONASUPO sets the parameters for its decision processes and influences the types of marketing strategies that it pursues. A model of marketing decision-making will be presented and then used to describe how these processes occur in CONASUPO's structural and environmental context. Lastly, distinctions will be made between decision-making in CONASUPO and in the private sector in Mexico.Focus on marketing decisions in CONASUPO will be restricted to its retail operations. While there is certainly interdependence in its multilevel operations-from purchaser of commodities to storage, training, manufacturing, wholesaling, and retailing-the multiple and distinct objectives of each of these endeavors confound the issues of marketing decision-making. These interdependencies are discussed, but are not as thoroughly An important facet of marketing decisions within a public enterprise is the organizational environment. Organizational purpose often presents contradictory, multiple goals for such enterprises. In addition, the requisite profit objectives of the private sector may be absent as measures of goal achievement; the "political" profits, or social welfare contributions of the public enterprise that take their place are difficult to assess, yet must guide marketing policy and strategies. Organizational structure also influences the nature of marketing decision-making. The design of a particular enterprise determines to a great extent responsibility and effectiveness for implementing different types of marketing decisions. The consistency between marketing strategy and operational decisions is affected by administrative responsibilities as well. Lastly, the organizational climate places constraints on the "nature" of marketing strategies which an enterprise chooses to pursue. This climate is formed by the enterprises' reward system, values, and training of its personnel and by internal and external environments which impinge on the organiz...