Dawn of the AI era in marketing strategy and twilight of the conglomerates era in corporate strategy: Knowledge decay, knowledge relevance lifespan and new knowledge creation

Understanding, explaining, and predicting the strategic behaviors of firms at various levels (e.g., brand, product, product line, product category, and product-market) and the performance outcomes of the behaviors are a major focus of scholarly research in strategic management and strategic marketing (marketing strategy). Managerial relevance of scholarly research in marketing strategy encompasses conceptual relevance (i.e., enhancing a decision-maker’s knowledge and understanding of a marketing strategy phenomenon) and instrumental relevance (e.g., relevance of the findings of a research study as an input for strategy decisions). Over time, the instrumental relevance of research-based knowledge on marketing strategy phenomena decays, due to changes in the macro environment in which firms operate (e.g., cultural, economic, legal, market, political, social, and technological) and other factors. However, the conceptual relevance of research-based knowledge is generally more enduring. The article explores issues relating to knowledge decay, lifespan of relevance of knowledge, and new knowledge creation in the context of the dawn of the AI era in marketing strategy and the twilight of the conglomerates era in corporate strategy.