The upcoming accession to the European Union finds the majority of Hungarians in two states of mind. Some feel that after 40 years’ Russian occupation, Hungary is finally on the brink of achieving what it has aimed for all along in its 1000 year history: to belong to the well developed cultural civilization of Western Europe. In the year 1000, Hungary’s first king – Saint Stephen – professed this goal by choosing Rome over the Eastern Christianity led by the Byzantine Empire. Others worry about the problems Hungary’s economy will face and are concerned that the already existing dominance of multinational companies shall once and for all overcome Hungarian enterprises in the economic competition.

Similarly mixed feelings can be observed amongst the Hungarian marketing researchers and professors. On the one hand, we feel that we have always belonged to Western Europe – even when the “real” Western Europe did not reciprocate this feeling due to the existence of “Iron Curtain” (the tearing down of which started precisely here in Hungary in 1989). On the other hand, however, the competition bred by globalization makes itself felt even in academic life - for many, appraisal in the new markets bears with it the possibility of failure.

For the members of the European Marketing Academy, Hungary, Budapest, and the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration are not “terra incognita”. In 1996, EMAC held its 25th anniversary conference in Budapest. At this conference – the largest in EMAC’s history –175 lectures were given. Three hundred-fifty participants from 30 countries got acquainted with each other, Budapest, the Puszta, the Karl Marx statue in BUESPA’s hall, as well as with our present day history. The participants could observe that in Hungary marketing has deep roots both in business- and in academic life.

In 1970, it was at the then Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences that the first Marketing Department was set up. It was here that the writer of these lines was first a student, then a member, and finally, from 1992, its chair. At the time, there were many who professed themselves to be involved in marketing and market surveys. The professional journal “Piackutatás” (“Market Survey”, later renamed “The Hungarian Journal of Marketing and Management”) founded in 1967 and now in its 38th year of existence, undertook to deal with both the academic and managerial approach to marketing. In 1983, over 2 decades ago, the Committee on Agromarketing - under the leadership of Pál Tomcsányi - was set up within the frame of the Section of Agricultural Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS). From 1996 the HAS’s Section of Agricultural Sciences and its Section of Economics and Law have a joint, interdisciplinary Committee on Marketing with a membership of 60 marketing and logistics researchers.

The Club of Marketing Professors/Lecturers was founded 10 years ago in 1994 as a club under the auspices of the Hungarian Marketing Association which gathers together the Hungarian marketing managers. The annual meeting of the Club of Marketing Professors gives its approximately 80 members the possibility for the exchange of experiences. The Club and the HAS Committee on Marketing both consider the education of the new, upcoming generation of marketing experts to be important as can be seen from the fact that PhD students specializing in marketing now study in one of 5 different Hungarian universities.

One of the outstanding events of this year was a conference organized on March 11, 2004 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on the occasion of Professor Pál Tomcsányi’s 80th birthday. Professor Tomcsányi’s name in Hungary is the hallmark of the creation of scientifically based marketing. The conference started with a presentation by Professor Tomcsányi, a regular member of HAS, and was followed by the lectures of 19 Hungarian marketing research experts - leading professors in the marketing departments of the best Hungarian universities, recognized in the field of marketing education and research - who presented their latest findings. The proceedings of the conference was published in the 7th volume of “Transition, Competitiveness and Economic Growth” series (Akadémiai Publishing House) entitled “Marketing Theory and Practice – A Hungarian Perspective”. The volume was edited by myself, József Lehota, István Piskóti, and Gábor Rekettye, and is dedicated to Professor Tomcsányi, teacher and mentor of many of the authors. The collection of studies included in the book – which is suitable as a reader in various marketing courses in many universities – gives the reader a representative cross-section of the main scientific issues that Hungarian researchers are concerned with at the beginning of the new millennium. The thematic collection of studies presents the main approaches that prevail in the analysis of the various marketing topics.

Professor József Berács
Chair, Marketing Department, BUESPA
Deputy Chair of the Committee on Marketing of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
EMAC, National Representative in Hungary