The Role of Knowledge Management in Industrial Marketing: A Longitudinal Study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that knowledge management plays in making industrial marketing sustainable. In order to examine sustainability over time, a longitudinal study has been carried out. Three multinational companies, Atlas Copco, SKF and Volvo are followed from their inception, in 1873, 1907 and 1927 to present time. Due to the long time span involved most of the empirical data collection is carried out in the form of internal and external document studies. The data is analysed using the constant comparative technique from the grounded theory approach. A framework combining knowledge management and industrial marketing is proposed. The research has interesting implications for the scientific understanding of industrial marketing, as the field of knowledge management has not been previously integrated and many aspects of marketing are knowledge driven processes. Moreover, the framework that is proposed should be useful for managers of industrial companies in their efforts of making their marketing more sustainable.