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The pseudoscientist ‘priest’: religiously selling nanotechnology

Dean, Andrew Kristoffer (2021) The pseudoscientist ‘priest’: religiously selling nanotechnology. Journal of Marketing Management, 37 (15-16). pp. 1550-1572. ISSN 0267-257X

Item Type: Article

Abstract

Nanotechnology is the pinnacle of high technology, increasingly coveted by non-scientist buyers seeking science fiction rather than fact. This B2B ethnography deepens our understanding of scientist sellers rejecting orthodox technical sales talk, in order to guide culturally distant non-scientist buyers into more similar sense via religious pseudoscience (scientism). Although heretical, scientism is a powerful proselytising tool, enabling (pseudo)scientist sellers to reimagine themselves as powerful ‘priests’, while obligating buyers to have faith in their teachings, or face excommunication from the ‘church’ of nanotechnology. Within this sales-based ‘theocracy’, the metaphoric methodological ‘God’ Science is the ultimate form of validation, duplicitously manipulated, and overtly drawn on to facilitate the diffusion of poorly understood ‘salvific’ innovations, while supporting an apocryphal religion for high-technology sales.

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More Information

Uncontrolled Keywords: B2B marketing, critical marketing, ethnography, product management, sensemaking, pseudoscientist priest
Depositing User: Andrew Dean

Identifiers

Item ID: 14958
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2021.1928266
ISSN: 0267-257X
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/14958
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2021.1928266

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Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 04 Aug 2022 09:19
Last Modified: 17 Nov 2022 03:38

Contributors

Author: Andrew Kristoffer Dean

University Divisions

Faculty of Business, Law and Tourism > Sunderland Business School

Subjects

Business and Management > Business
Business and Management > Business and Management
Business and Management > Management (general)
Business and Management > Marketing

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