WHY DOES MOST academic consumer research have such
a narrow impact? Eight scholars argue that consumer
researchers handicap themselves by adhering to implicit
boundaries or defaults about what they study, why they
study it, and how they communicate their findings. This limits
the research they produce and the audiences they reach.
The study’s authors are Deborah MacInnis of USC Marshall
at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los
Angeles; Vicki Morwitz of Columbia Business School in New
York City; Simona Botti at London Business School in the
U.K.; Donna Hoffman of the George Washington University
School of Business in Washington, D.C.; Robert Kozinets of
USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism;
Donald Lehmann of Columbia Business School; John
Lynch Jr. of the Leeds School of Business at the University
of Colorado Boulder; and Cornelia Pechmann of the Merage
School of Business at the University of California Irvine.
The authors note that while consumer researchers cite
scholars in other fields, those scholars rarely cite work by
consumer researchers. Also, most practitioners rely on the
work of popular business writers rather than academics. As
a result, the work that consumer researchers generate has
little impact beyond other academics.
The authors suggest that consumer research scholars
stop looking at other academic articles as inspirations for
their own work. Instead, the authors urge these scholars
to look outward toward
real-world examples and
explore them in ways that
have not yet been attempted
by practitioners and
other academics. Such
efforts will make their
research more relevant
to scholars in other fields,
as well as practitioners,
governmental agencies,
and NGOs.
“Creating Boundary-
Breaking Marketing-
Relevant Consumer
Research” appeared in the
March 2020 issue of the
Journal of Marketing.