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Marketing is the process through which economy is integrated into society to serve human needs ([2] Drucker, 1958).
Introduction
Peter Drucker is widely acknowledged as the father of modern management ([6] Gunther, 2009; [15] Webster, 2009). His landmark books The Practice of Management and the recently revised Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices continue to be relevant today. Drucker was 95 when he passed away in November 2005. Over the course of his almost 70 year career his work influenced individuals, businesses, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and the entire Japanese business establishment ([14] Sullivan, 2005). Harvard Business Review published an issue commemorating his centennial in November 2009 underscoring the profound impact Peter F. Drucker has had and continues to have on the practice of management.
Drucker's ideas permeate management and marketing literature; the concept of the customer as central to the purpose of business originated with Drucker. Drucker stated "there is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer." And "because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation" ([1] Drucker, 1954). To Drucker, marketing was synonymous with business; in Practice of Management he states "Marketing is not only much broader than selling; it is not a specialized activity at all. It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer's point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise" ([1] Drucker, 1954). The second purpose of business, innovation, is essential for long-term viability. For a business, or a library, to continue to thrive into the future "it is not necessary ... to grow bigger; but it is necessary that it constantly grow better" ([4] Drucker and Maciariello, 2008). Innovation implies change, and all business, including libraries, must "consider change both natural and acceptable" ([4] Drucker and Maciariello, 2008).
Drucker also defined what he termed "the theory of the business", the assumptions, ideas, and beliefs an organization is built on. He captured his definition of strategy, as it pertained to his theory of the business, in five deceptively simple questions:
"What is our business?"
"Who is the customer?"
"What is value to the...