Theodore Levitt

Theodore Levitt (March 1, 1925 – June 28, 2006) was a German-born American economist and a professor at the Harvard Business School. He was editor of the Harvard Business Review, noted for increasing the Review's circulation and popularizing the term globalization. In 1983, he proposed a definition for corporate purpose: "Rather than merely making money, it is to create and keep a customer".

Early life Levitt was born in 1925 in Schlüchtern-Vollmerz to a Jewish family. A decade later his family moved to Dayton, Ohio. He served in World War II, received his high school diploma through correspondence school and then earned a bachelor's degree at Antioch College, a college founded by the Christian Connection, and a PhD in economics at the Ohio State University. His first teaching job was at the University of North Dakota.

In 1959 he joined the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Later that year, he became well known after publishing Marketing Myopia in Harvard Business Review where he asks "What business are you in?", a phrase that demands one account for the significance of the job one does.

Role in developing the term "globalization" Though widely credited with coining the term globalization in an article entitled "Globalization of Markets", which appeared in the May–June 1983 issue of Harvard Business Review, he was not the originator of the term. As a New York Times article notes, the term 'globalization' was in use well before this publication (at least as early as 1944) and had been used by economists as early as 1981. Nonetheless, Levitt can be credited with popularizing the term and bringing it to a mainstream business audience.

Further work He was the author of The Marketing Imagination, and his works have been translated into eleven languages. He was also the author of numerous articles on economic, political, management, and marketing subjects. His Marketing Intangible Products and Product Intangibles article (1981, in the Harvard Business Review) argued that the distinction made between goods and services is not sustainable.

Between 1985 and 1989, he headed the Harvard Business Review as editor. Marketing Intangible Products and Product Intangibles, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1981, p. 94-102. After The Sale Is Over, Harvard Business Review, September–October 1983, p. 87-93. The Globalization of Markets, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1983.

Books: The Third Sector: New Tactics for a Responsive Society. 1973 Marketing for business growth, 1974, New York : McGraw-Hill, First ed. published in 1969 under the title: The marketing mode. The marketing imagination, 1983, New York : The Free Press The marketing imagination, 1986, New York : Free Press (New, expanded ed.) Thinking about management, 1991, New York : Free Press Levitt on marketing, 1991, Boston, Mass. : Harvard Business School Press