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As a powerful means of theory building, conceptual articles are increasingly called for in marketing academia. However, researchers struggle to design and write non-empirical articles because of the lack of commonly accepted templates to guide their development. The aim of this paper is to highlight methodological considerations for conceptual papers: it is argued that such papers must be grounded in a clear research design, and that the choice of theories and their role in the analysis must be explicated and justified. The paper discusses four potential templates for conceptual papers – Theory Synthesis, Theory Adaptation, Typology, and Model – and their respective aims, approach for using theories, and contribution potential. Supported by illustrative examples, these templates codify some of the tacit knowledge that underpins the design of non-empirical papers and will be of use to anyone undertaking, supervising, or reviewing conceptual research.

This paper is composed of scholarly essays that explore the problematic nature of marketing’s influence within the academy and organizations, potential explanations and causes, and how conceptual and theoretical research can address and move our discipline forward. Each section represents material and research developed through interactive sessions from Academy of Marketing Science conferences. Topics include the history of the marketing discipline, its innovation and loss of domain expertise; important internal and external environmental concepts that have impeded relevance and theoretical impact; foundational elements of how the discipline frames problems, provides methodological-based solutions, and influences the very subjects of our research in such a way as to lesson our contribution to scholarship and practice; and finally the discipline’s inability to understand the intangible nature of marketing activities and outcomes, as well as marketers’ struggle to articulate relevance in a way that is easily understood in the language of finance. Through this critical self-examination of the field of marketing a central premise emerged—a discipline-wide drift and myopic approach to rigor and relevance.

The renewed interest in the market as a unit of analysis has increased adoption of a market system dynamics (MSD) perspective. Since studies drawing on MSD have significant overlaps with other research traditions equally focused on market changes, we trace the theoretical boundaries of the literature on MSD, and unpack its evolution, in order to appreciate conceptual achievements and research directions. Building on change-process theorizing and on a reiterative processual multi-stage research strategy, we conduct a systematic review of the literature on MSD. We organize the findings into three stages of MSD’s maturation– infancy, adolescence , and adulthood –and show that MSD has grown into a market approach that is ever more multi-actor, theoretically-plural, and based on longitudinal methodologies. The existing literature has gradually shifted towards a balance in agency and structure in market change, and towards a more cautious view on the consumer’s role. Under-researched areas are pinpointed, along with research avenues that can further reinforce MSD.

What drives consumers to purchase or not purchase ethical products remains something of a puzzle for consumer behavior researchers. Existing theory—particularly the widely applied theory of planned behavior (TPB)—cannot fully explain ethical purchase decisions. This article contends that not only is the original TPB limited in its applicability to ethical purchasing contexts but also subsequent modifications to it have been generally unfitting. This study advances the literature by taking a different approach to recharacterize and re-extend the original components of the TPB in order to make it more relevant and effective for explaining and predicting ethical consumer decisions. This new theoretical framework of intention formation features four determinants (attitude, subjective norm, moral identity, and perceived behavior control) and a key moderator (level of confidence), and thereby possesses better explanatory and predictive abilities to understand ethical consumer decisions.

“Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity,” published in the Journal of Marketing in 1993, was one of the early thought pieces and review papers on branding in the field. Written to be a comprehensive bridge between the theory and practice of branding, it has received a large number of citations and several awards through the years. Here, I look back at that article and provide some perspective as to how it was developed, highlighting some of its main contributions. I also outline some of my subsequent related branding research, as well as that of others. Finally, I consider some future research priorities in branding, putting emphasis on the online and digital developments that have occurred since the publication of the article.

The improvement of well-being in society has moved away from centralized and government-led configurations to more market-based and individual solutions, where consumers are expected to take on more responsibility for their well-being. This shift also calls market actors to assume more central roles in providing service for well-being. This article uses literature on neoliberal responsibilization and an integrative literature review of transformative service research to conceptualize a framework of responsibilization in transformative service. The framework provides a critical examination of the relationship between actors’ responsibilities and consumer well-being. Based on the framework, the article provides implications for research and practice on how service can uplift consumer well-being.

Robots are increasingly being employed in retail settings to accomplish a wide variety of tasks. In the years ahead, it is expected that most retailers will employ robots in some capacity and that these robots will alter the role of employees and change the nature of customer experience. However, since this revolution is in its early stages, scholarship in this domain is largely forward looking in nature and focused on the future rather than the present. Our research seeks to enrich and extend this literature by examining a recent robot deployment (i.e., the Whiz) across a large Japanese retail chain (i.e., Daiei). Specifically, we report an interview with executives from both Daiei as well as Softbank Robotics (the manufacturer of the Whiz). This interview touches upon a number of interesting topics including, how this robot is currently being deployed, how employees and customers are responding to this robot, and how it impacts store operations and retailer performance. We then reflect upon this interview to offer a set of future research directions. Our article is also accompanied by a commentary by Guha and Grewal ( 2022 , in this issue) that offers additional insights into robots in retail.

Synthesizing the latest findings of more than one hundred articles in the literature, the current paper presents an integrative, process-based framework entailing a dynamic view of consumers’ persuasion knowledge. Consequently, this paper offers a succinct summary of the status quo of the literature and sheds light on the underdeveloped areas that require further empirical investigation. Furthermore, this article identifies methodological problems (including priming and measurement issues) that have negatively impacted the persuasion knowledge literature and presents potential solutions to alleviate them. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications of the developed model are discussed in the last section of the paper.

The extant literature on influence explores how attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are shaped. This research falls into three main categories: social influence, persuasive communication–based influence, and choice architecture–based influence. Collectively, these literatures offer conceptualizations of influence that can be applied to improve consumer well-being and business efficacy. Yet while this body of work is impressive, it stops short of illuminating the full spectrum of influence; in particular, current theories has been unable to fully account for embodied activities and the interconnected nature of consumption activities within social influences. This paper begins to fill this gap by exploring the origins (impingement-based influence and opportunity-based influence) and outcomes (practice updating, practice abandonment, and new practice adoption) of influence on consumer practices. The study enriches and extends prior research on influence by offering new venues for research and directions for future studies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethics is needed to address the risks that are outpacing efforts to protect consumers and society. AI is becoming human-competitive with the ability to perform tasks, that without controls, can result in harmful or destructive actions. Principles are currently the most discussed ethical approach for pervasive boundaries for algorithmic rule-based intelligence. Principles, values, norms, and rules should be the foundation of an ethical corporate culture with all participants aware of and involved in developing AI ethics. To address these concerns, a theory-based decision framework is presented to incorporate ethical considerations into AI applications. With limited discussion on frameworks to manage AI ethics, we provide a modification of the Hunt–Vitell (H–V) ethical decision model to provide a supportive theoretical framework. This model considers the cultural, industry, organizational, and legal standards that shape AI ethical decision making. The model is based on individual decision making and parallels the decision process in autonomous AI system decision making. Topics for additional research are advanced to create expanded knowledge on this topic.