Marketing scholars have been using different concepts during the development of marketing thought. Among these ”the marketing concept” has dominated the ideas of marketing thought. The concept became dominating enough to establish a theoretical and practical ”paradigm”. It had (and still has) its virtues. But the concept contains a series of shortcomings and many anomalies. It has also led the discipline straight into a crisis of identity.

Then a new perspective arose where researchers saw marketing as exchange. Marketing scholars hope that the exchange approach does not have the shortcomings of the marketing concept and that it will bring clarity and unity to the discipline and form a basis for the constitution of a scientific discipline.

The aim of the study is to show how exchange is handled in literature and how exchange is used to explain marketing. A philosophical frame of reference is applied here. Aristoteles was the first thinker to develop an exchange theory. The thesis is thus designed to show the development of exchange theory from Aristoteles to today. The study shows that there are great diversity and controversy among the researchers about exchange and marketing exchange. The differences and controversies shown depend largely on the philosophical views upheld by the authors. It is argued that our prime task is not to reject one theory in favour of another but to encourage pluralism and multitude of ideas. The pluralistic frame of reference thus put forward has exchange as its core concept. It is discussed that the acceptance of exchange as a core concept is a significant progress to provide a coherent structure to the discipline. But we also need proper categories or theoretical concepts to build up a marketing theory. A set of related concepts and categories is thus used to develop the pluralistic approach.