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Customer experience: fundamental premises and implications for research

• Review Paper
• Open access
• Published: 13 January 2020
• Volume 48 , pages 630–648, ( 2020 )

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• Larissa Becker 1 &
• Elina Jaakkola 1  

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Customer experience is a key marketing concept, yet the growing number of studies focused on this topic has led to considerable fragmentation and theoretical confusion. To move the field forward, this article develops a set of fundamental premises that reconcile contradictions in research on customer experience and provide integrative guideposts for future research. A systematic review of 136 articles identifies eight literature fields that address customer experience. The article then compares the phenomena and metatheoretical assumptions prevalent in each field to establish a dual classification of research traditions that study customer experience as responses to either (1) managerial stimuli or (2) consumption processes. By analyzing the compatibility of these research traditions through a metatheoretical lens, this investigation derives four fundamental premises of customer experience that are generalizable across settings and contexts. These premises advance the conceptual development of customer experience by defining its core conceptual domain and providing guidelines for further research.

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For the past decade, customer experience has enjoyed remarkable attention in both marketing research and practice. Business leaders believe customer experience is central to firm competitiveness (McCall 2015 ), and marketing scholars call it the fundamental basis for marketing management (Homburg et al. 2015 ; Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ). Such attention has also prompted calls for research (e.g., Ostrom et al. 2015 ) and special issues devoted to customer experience, with a resulting dramatic increase in academic publications pertaining to this concept across many different literature fields and significant advances in scholarly understanding.

Yet this trend has also produced considerable fragmentation and theoretical confusion. No common understanding exists regarding what customer experience entails. Some studies assert that customer experience reflects the offerings that firms stage and manage (Pine and Gilmore 1998 ), but others define it as customer responses to firm-related contact (Homburg et al. 2015 ; Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ; Meyer and Schwager 2007 ). The concept has been used to describe anything from extraordinary (Arnould and Price 1993 ) to mundane (Carú and Cova 2003 ) experiences. Some researchers delimit the scope of customer experience to a particular context, such as service encounters (Kumar et al. 2014 ) or retail settings (Verhoef et al. 2009 ), and others view it more broadly as emerging in customers’ lifeworlds (Chandler and Lusch 2015 ; Heinonen et al. 2010 ).

The lack of a unified view creates considerable challenges for theory development (Chaney et al. 2018 ; Kranzbühler et al. 2018 ). The diverse conceptualizations of customer experience mean that its operationalization differs from study to study, creating measurement and validity concerns. Confusion also prevails about the scope and boundaries of the customer experience construct, its antecedents, and its consequents. Researchers have difficulty defining which insights they can combine, thus limiting replication and generalization across contexts. These challenges also hinder researchers’ ability to disseminate meaningful implications for managers seeking to foster superior customer experience.

To mitigate these challenges and move the field toward a more unified customer experience theory, an integrative understanding is needed. With this article, we seek to develop a set of fundamental premises that reconcile contradictions and dilemmas in the current customer experience literature and provide integrative guideposts for future research in the field . As integrating such fragmented research requires understanding the distance between the phenomena addressed by different studies as well as the degree of compatibility in their underlying assumptions (Okhuysen and Bonardi 2011 ), we pose two research questions to guide our efforts: (1) What is the nature of the customer experience phenomenon and the underlying metatheoretical assumptions adopted in literature that addresses customer experience? (2) What are the common elements of customer experience that are applicable across contexts and literature fields?

To address these questions, we started with a systematic literature review to identify customer experience research in eight key literature fields: services marketing, consumer research, retailing, service-dominant (S-D) logic, service design, online marketing, branding, and experiential marketing. We then analyzed the compatibility of these fields with a metatheoretical approach, which supports comparisons across fragmented, scattered literature pertaining to a particular concept (Gioia and Pitre 1990 ; Möller 2013 ). On the basis of this comparison, we integrated these eight fields into two higher-order research traditions, defined by their approach to customer experience as either (1) responses to managerial stimuli or (2) responses to consumption processes. Through these analyses, we explicate the underlying assumptions of each research tradition and also provide a state-of-the-art description of how customer experience has been studied so far.

Furthermore, we identify commensurable elements that are applicable to both research traditions and across contexts to define four fundamental premises of customer experience that provide solutions to problems in the current research on this concept. These premises provide an integrative definition of customer experience, reveal a multilevel and dynamic view of the customer journey, highlight contingencies for customer experience, and determine the role of the firms in influencing customer experience. Each fundamental premise offers guidelines for future research as well as managerial practice. Our delineation of the conceptual domain of customer experience advances research by reconciling contradictions found in the literature and bridging different research fields and traditions, allowing them to speak the same language, and offering a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon (MacInnis 2011 ). This view complements existing reviews of customer experience (Table 1 ) that tend to focus on narrowly selected sets of articles, that seldom consider the metatheoretical underpinnings of the reviewed studies, and that do not integrate the dispersed studies. The fundamental premises proposed herein can support more rigorous studies, whose results will have more meaningful implications for firms.

The next section presents our research approach, followed by the results of the metatheoretical analysis, including a description of the key phenomena and metatheoretical assumptions embodied in each literature field, as well as a derived theoretical map of customer experience in marketing. Subsequently, we develop four fundamental premises of customer experience by integrating compatible assumptions across research traditions. In the conclusion, we detail the theoretical contributions and managerial implications of this study, as well as its limitations.

Research approach

Developing an integrative view of customer experience requires organizing the scattered literature into groups and analyzing their compatibility (MacInnis 2011 ). This analysis involved three phases: (1) a systematic literature review of customer experience that groups individual studies into eight distinct literature fields, (2) organization of the eight literature fields into two distinct research traditions on the basis of the customer experience phenomena addressed and the underlying metatheoretical assumptions adopted, and (3) forming an integrated view of customer experience by building on the compatible elements across research traditions.

Phase 1: identifying and grouping relevant customer experience research

We conducted a systematic literature review to select relevant articles that study customer experience in marketing, according to strict guidelines (e.g., Booth et al. 2012 ; Palmatier et al. 2018 ). A systematic literature review enables overcoming possible biases in comparison to traditional reviews because it uses explicit criteria and procedures for selecting and including articles in the sample (e.g., Littell et al. 2008 ). We identified 142 articles that we subjected to a two-step process: identification of literature fields and classification of the articles (see Appendix 1 ).

We started with four literature fields—S-D logic, consumer research, services marketing, and service design—that were previously identified as relevant domains for customer experience research (Jaakkola et al. 2015 ). When the articles did not fit these fields in terms of their primary research foci (the aspects of customer experience studied), we added a new category, ultimately resulting in four additional literature fields: retailing, online marketing, branding, and experiential marketing. For example, branding emerged as a clearly distinct field that focuses on brand stimuli, such as logo and packaging (e.g., Brakus et al. 2009 ).

We then classified the articles into these literature fields according to three criteria: the primary customer experience stimuli studied, the customer experience context, and the key references used to define customer experience (e.g., citing Arnould and Price ( 1993 ) to substantiate the definition of customer experience indicates an article is likely to belong to the literature field of consumer research) (Table 2 ).

To be classified into a specific literature field, an article had to meet at least two of these three criteria without considerable overlap between fields. We excluded 12 articles that did not fulfill these criteria. However, we added 6 additional papers, identified through a bibliography search (i.e., back-tracking) (Booth et al. 2012 ; Johnston et al. 2018 ), resulting in a total sample of 136 articles (see Web Appendix ). The iterative process of reading the articles, identifying the literature fields, and classifying the articles stopped when we reached theoretical saturation (i.e., the majority of articles could clearly be categorized in one of the fields).

Phase 2: Analyzing the nature of the customer experience phenomena and metatheoretical assumptions in the literature fields

Following Okhuysen and Bonardi ( 2011 ), we analyzed these eight literature fields in terms of the focal phenomena addressed and the ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions adopted (Table 3 ) (see Appendix 2 for a more detailed account of the analysis). Using these elements, we compared the literature fields and sought to identify broader groups. By situating the eight literature fields in a theoretical map, we could navigate across them and develop conclusions about their compatibility (Gioia and Pitre 1990 ; Möller 2013 ; Okhuysen and Bonardi 2011 ). In turn, we identified two distinct research traditions that encompass all eight literature fields.

Phase 3: Developing an integrated view of customer experience

To integrate the two research traditions, we used a method analogous to triangulation (Gioia and Pitre 1990 ). By juxtaposing the two research traditions from a metatheoretical perspective, we sought to identify customer experience elements that are common to the two traditions, distinct yet compatible elements, and unique elements that do not fit with the assumptions from the other research tradition (Gioia and Pitre 1990 ; Lewis and Grimes 1999 ). The integration of compatible elements resulted in the development of four fundamental premises of customer experience.

Results of the metatheoretical analysis

In this section, we first describe the nature of the phenomena addressed and the metatheoretical assumptions adopted in the customer experience literature. We then position each literature field on a theoretical map of customer experience to establish two higher-order research traditions.

Customer experience phenomena and metatheoretical assumptions in the literature fields

Table 4 presents the description of the key customer experience phenomena addressed and the metatheoretical assumptions adopted in the eight identified literature fields. A discussion on the similarities and contradictions between them follows (cf. Möller 2013 ; Okhuysen and Bonardi 2011 ).

Customer experience phenomena addressed

As Table 4 shows, there are considerable differences between the literature fields with regard to the scope and nature of customer experience as a research phenomenon. The literature on experiential marketing tends to view experience as the offering itself. However, the most prevalent view within other fields sees customer experience as a customer’s reactions and responses to particular stimuli. Some studies focus on customer responses to stimuli residing within the firm–customer interface , with the goal of understanding how firms can use different types of stimuli to improve customers’ responses along their customer journey, the series of firm- or offering related touchpoints that customers interact with during their purchase process (e.g., Patrício et al. 2011 ). For example, services marketing focuses on service encounter stimuli, such as the servicescape, employee interactions, the core service, and other customers (e.g., Grace and O’Cass 2004 ), the retailing literature focuses on retail elements, such as assortment and price (e.g., Verhoef et al. 2009 ), and online marketing focuses on the elements of the virtual environment (e.g., Rose et al. 2012 ).

In contrast, S-D logic and consumer research consider stimuli related to the customer’s overall consumption process , encompassing factors beyond dyadic firm–customer interactions (e.g., Chandler and Lusch 2015 ; Woodward and Holbrook 2013 ). These studies consider customer experience to also emerge through non-market-related processes (e.g., eating dinner at home; Carú and Cova 2003 ), affected by a range of stakeholders such as customer collectives (Carú and Cova 2015 ) and even institutional arrangements such as norms, rules, and socio-historical structures (e.g., Akaka and Vargo 2015 ).

Metatheoretical assumptions

In terms of the ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions present in the customer experience literature, our analysis reveals some clear divides (Table 4 ). On a general level, services marketing, retailing, service design, online marketing, branding, and experiential marketing assume that particular stimuli likely trigger a certain response from customers. Thus, their view resonates with the idea of an objective, external, concrete reality (Burrell and Morgan 1979 ). Researchers employ hypothetic–deductive reasoning to study the relationship between customer experience and other variables, typically with surveys and experiments (e.g., Srivastava and Kaul 2016 ). In theoretical models, contextual factors usually appear as moderating variables (e.g., Verhoef et al. 2009 ). These fields hence tend to adopt a positivist epistemological approach, seeking to explain an external, concrete reality by searching for regularities and causal relationships in an objective way (Burrell and Morgan 1979 ).

In contrast, consumer research and S-D logic take a subjective view and adopt an interpretive epistemology. Research in these fields sees the customer experience as embedded in each customer’s lifeworld and interpreted by that customer (Helkkula and Kelleher 2010 ). External reality does not exist but instead serves only to describe the subjective reality, which is a product of individual consciousness (Burrell and Morgan 1979 ; Tadajewski 2004 ). Neither S-D logic nor consumer research aims to generate universal, generalizable laws; instead, they seek to understand how customers in their unique situation experience an object (Addis and Holbrook 2001 ). Therefore, these researchers consider customer subjectivity, highlight the role of contextual factors, and prefer qualitative methods (e.g., ethnography, phenomenological interviews) (Schembri 2009 ). Most consumer research studies employ an interpretive and inductive approach that is used to capture the symbolic meaning of consumption experiences (Holbrook 2006 ). In S-D logic, empirical studies often adopt a phenomenological approach, aiming to understand how value emerges during service use in the customer’s context (Helkkula and Kelleher 2010 ).

Theoretical map of the customer experience in marketing

The preceding discussion highlights that the scope of the customer experience phenomena addressed in the research ranges from narrow and dyadic to a broader ecosystem view. In terms of metatheoretical assumptions, we identify a continuum from more positivist to more interpretive approaches. Footnote 1 Our comparisons of these elements produced a theoretical map of customer experience where we group the eight literature fields into two higher-order research traditions (Fig.  1 ), which we define as groups of studies that share general assumptions about the research domain (Laudan 1977 ; Möller 2013 ).

Theoretical map of customer experience

The first research tradition combines experiential marketing, services marketing, online marketing, retailing, branding, and service design. These fields view customer experience as responses and reactions to managerial stimuli . As noted, each literature field addresses different stimuli; for example, brand-related stimuli include packaging, advertising, and logos (Brakus et al. 2009 ), whereas retailing elements include price, merchandise, and store facilities (Verhoef et al. 2009 ). The general goal across this research tradition is to examine how firms can affect customer experience by managing different types of stimuli, typically focusing on firm-controlled touchpoints. To test these relationships, researchers usually adopt a positivist philosophical positioning.

The second research tradition comprises consumer research and S-D logic that view customer experience as responses and reactions to consumption processes . This tradition adopts a broad view on experience as it addresses any stimuli during the entire consumption process, potentially involving many firms, customers, and stakeholders, all of which can contribute to the customer experience but are not necessarily under the firm’s control. Research following this tradition tends to see customer experience as embedded in a customer’s lifeworld and interpreted by the customer, such that it reflects an interpretive philosophical positioning (e.g., phenomenology). Finally, service design lies at the intersection of the two research traditions as it is inherently managerially focused but recent studies increasingly incorporate a more systemic view of stimuli for customer experience.

By building on the common elements across traditions and reconciling the distinct but compatible elements, we next develop fundamental premises of customer experience that provide opportunities to extend research within both traditions.

Fundamental premises of customer experience

Many authors highlight the need to build bridges across research traditions to establish a comprehensive understanding of a research domain (e.g., Gioia and Pitre 1990 ; Lewis and Grimes 1999 ; Okhuysen and Bonardi 2011 ). The pivotal question for developing a more unified customer experience theory is: To what extent can the literature from these two traditions be combined?

Our analysis revealed two research traditions that differ in terms of their metatheoretical assumptions, affecting how customer experience is understood and studied. A juxtaposition of these research traditions allows us to identify common elements, distinct yet compatible elements, as well as elements that are incompatible. From this analysis we developed four fundamental premises of customer experience that build on the shared assumptions and help in solving the key discrepancies in the extant literature. These premises may generalize across settings, allowing each research tradition to offer complementary results that collectively provide a comprehensive understanding of the same phenomena (cf. Gioia and Pitre 1990 ). Together, these premises (P1-P4) cover the “big picture” of what customer experience is, what affects it, its key contingencies, and the role that firms can play in it (Fig.  2 ). For each of these premises, we delineate guidelines for future research to move the field forward.

Conceptual framework for customer experience

Definition of customer experience

The metatheoretical analysis conducted revealed a myriad of definitions for customer experience that ultimately suggest different phenomena (see Table 4 ). The current literature on customer experience does not agree on the definition of customer experience nor on its nomological network. Confusion prevails as to whether experience is response to an offering (e.g., Meyer and Schwager 2007 ) or assessment of the quality of the offering (e.g., Kumar et al. 2014 ). This means that in some studies, customer experience overlaps with outcome variables such as satisfaction or value, while in others it is an independent variable leading to satisfaction, for example. Furthermore, some studies view experience as a characteristic of the product rather than as the customer’s response to it (e.g., Pine and Gilmore 1998 ), which is in deep conflict with the interpretive tradition that always views experience as a subjective perception by an individual and even as synonymous with value-in-use (Addis and Holbrook 2001 ).

To resolve this confusion, we suggest customer experience should be defined as non-deliberate, spontaneous responses and reactions to particular stimuli. This view builds on the most prevalent definition across the two research traditions, but separates customer experience from the stimuli that customers react to as well as from conscious evaluation that follows from it. This view rejects suggestions that evaluative concepts such as satisfaction or perceived service quality could be a component of customer experience (Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ).

Another conceptual confusion in the extant literature relates to assumptions held regarding the nature of experiences. As Carú and Cova ( 2003 ) note, much of the marketing research assumes that good experiences are “memorable,” if not “extraordinary.” The extant research tends to treat ordinary and extraordinary experiences as different phenomena (e.g., Arnould and Price 1993 ; Klaus and Maklan 2011 ). However, these studies typically focus on the extraordinary or ordinary nature of the offering, such as river rafting or experiential events (Arnould and Price 1993 ; Schouten et al. 2007 ) or routine and mundane offerings (Carú and Cova 2003 ), rather than on the customer’s response to these stimuli. As customer responses can range from weak to strong (Brakus et al. 2009 ), we propose this intensity better marks the difference between an ordinary and extraordinary customer experience. It follows that this classification can be leveraged as a continuum instead of a dichotomy; the weaker the customer responses and reactions, the more ordinary the experience, and vice versa (cf. Carú and Cova 2003 ). A customer can thus have an extraordinary experience as a response to a mundane offering.

In sum, to reconcile confusion in the extant research, we propose the following:

Premise 1a:

Customer experience comprises customers’ non-deliberate, spontaneous responses and reactions to offering-related stimuli along the customer journey .

Premise 1b:

Customer experience ranges from ordinary to extraordinary representing the intensity of customer responses to stimuli.

Implications of Premise 1 for future research

Following Premise 1a, researchers should distinguish customer experience from stimuli (e.g., the offering) and evaluative outcomes (e.g., value-in-use). For example, when operationalizing customer experience, researchers should not build on evaluative scales or use satisfaction and service quality as proxies, as is currently often done (see, e.g., Kumar et al. 2014 ; Ngobo 2005 ). Instead, the operationalization of customer experience should focus on the customer’s spontaneous responses and reactions to offering-related stimuli. The current customer experience literature offers a few solid measures that can serve as a starting point for further development (e.g., Brakus et al. 2009 ; Ding and Tseng 2015 ). We recommend building the measures on the most common experience dimensions used in the extant research—cognitive, affective, physical, sensorial, and social responses (e.g., Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ; Schmitt 1999 ; Verhoef et al. 2009 )—to facilitate the accumulation of knowledge and eventually enable comparing the weight of each type of response across different contexts. The extant research implies that the relevance of different types of customer responses may vary across contexts (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2017 ), but a lack of a common definition and measures for customer experience has prevented building this knowledge effectively.

Defining customer experience as spontaneous responses and reactions suggests that the issue of timing is relevant for its measurement. According to our literature review, most studies use research instruments where the respondents have to rely on memory to report their experience (e.g., Trudeau and Shobeiri 2016 ). To improve the validity of the findings, we recommend research designs where customer responses are captured right after the interaction with the offering-related stimuli has taken place. Some methods and technologies for capturing customers’ reactions in real time have been developed, such as the real time experience tracking method (Baxendale et al. 2015 ) and wearable devices for emotion detection (Jerauld 2015 ). Surprisingly, none of the 136 studies in our review used such technology to investigate customer experience in real time. Future studies should further explore the applicability and consumer acceptance of such methods and technologies.

Following Premise 1b, researchers should also change the way they address extraordinary vs. ordinary experiences. The current literature tends to assume that the higher the score on a customer experience scale, the better the customer experience is (e.g., Brakus et al. 2009 ). Future studies should address contexts where ordinary experiences (i.e., weak or neutral responses) are desirable in order to complement current research that predominantly focuses on contexts where firms try to strengthen customers’ responses rather than to keep them to a minimum (e.g., Ding and Tseng 2015 ). Such studies would help firms in designing customer journeys that, at some points, minimize certain types of responses, while increasing particular responses at other times.

Stimuli affecting customer experience

Delineating the conceptual domain of customer experience also requires defining the stimuli that affect its formation. Key discrepancies in the current literature relate to the source of the stimuli considered and the level of analysis. Our review revealed that most studies focus on a particular set of firm-controlled touchpoints and an integrative view is missing. This is problematic in many respects: customer journeys in today’s markets are “multitouch” and multichannel in nature with new types of stimuli emerging every day, suggesting that firms need to understand a broad range of touchpoints within and outside firm control, both in offline and online settings (Bolton et al. 2018 ; Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ). Furthermore, empowered customers are increasingly in charge of selecting individual pathways to achieve their goals (Edelman and Singer 2015 ; Heinonen et al. 2010 ; Teixeira et al. 2012 ). This means that journeys become increasingly complex and individualized, and the current literature silos focusing on a selected set of stimuli and touchpoints will fail to capture what the customer really experiences. The literature fields that consider customers’ holistic experiences in their lifeworld take a broader view but lack precision and insight into how experiences related to particular offerings emerge.

To resolve this dilemma, we propose integrating the currently disparate perspectives into a multilevel framework that draws on different fields of the customer experience literature and considers the stimuli at multiple levels of aggregation: First, cues refer to anything that can be perceived or sensed by the customer as the smallest stimulus unit with an influence on customer experience, such as product packing and logo design (Bolton et al. 2014 ; Brakus et al. 2009 ). Second, touchpoints reflect the moments when the customer interacts with or “touches” the offering (Patrício et al. 2011 ; Verhoef et al. 2009 ). These contact points can be direct (e.g., physical service encounters) or indirect (e.g., advertising) and comprise various cues (Meyer and Schwager 2007 ). Third, the customer journey comprises a series of touchpoints across the stages before, during, and after service provision (Lemon and Verhoef 2016 ; Teixeira et al. 2012 ). Fourth, the consumer journey level captures what customers do in their daily lives to achieve their goals, implying a broader focus than that of the customer journey and accommodating consumer interaction with multiple stakeholders beyond touchpoints with a single firm (Epp and Price 2011 ; Hamilton and Price 2019 ; Heinonen et al. 2010 ).

The extant literature has tended to measure customer experience either in one touchpoint or as an aggregate evaluation of the brand. However, recent research indicates a need for a more dynamic view: Kranzbühler et al. ( 2018 ) argue that customer experience is based on an evolving evaluation of a series of touchpoints, Bolton et al. ( 2014 ) suggest that some stimuli have multiplier effects, and Kuehnl et al. ( 2019 ) state that the connectivity of stimuli across touchpoints is an important driver for positive customer outcomes. These findings suggest that customer experience emerges in a dynamic manner and benefits from a multilevel analysis.

We present Premise 2 that addresses these shortcomings in the existing research and integrates insights across research traditions:

Premise 2a:

Customer experience stimuli reside within and outside firm-controlled touchpoints and can be viewed from multiple levels of aggregation.

Premise 2b:

Customer experience stimuli and their interconnections affect customer experience in a dynamic manner.

Implications of Premise 2 for future research

Premise 2 guides future research to study diverse offering-related stimuli through multiple levels of aggregation. Most of the reviewed research has examined a narrow scope of stimuli and touchpoints (e.g., Grace and O’Cass 2004 ) and a lack of insight into touchpoints beyond firm control is particularly glaring. We recommend cross-fertilization between the two research traditions: Researchers within the managerial research tradition could expand their research foci by drawing from consumption process studies that offer a broad outlook on the various stakeholders contributing stimuli that affect customer experience (e.g., Akaka and Vargo 2015 ; McColl-Kennedy et al. 2015 ). The research tradition focusing on experience as responses to consumption processes could adopt the more detailed analysis on journey composition offered by the managerial tradition and “zoom in” on the journey, focusing on the meanings that emerge at specific touchpoints, for example.

As extant studies often focus on measuring customer experience on the cue or touchpoint level (e.g., Grace and O’Cass 2004 ), the literature is unclear about how the interplay of diverse stimuli affect customer experience. Future research should thus study the interaction between types of stimuli and their dynamic effect on customer experience. Longitudinal research designs would be particularly useful for creating new insight into the evolving effects of stimuli configurations for the formation of customer experience as well as the interaction between the types of customer responses at different touchpoints. In addition, future research could investigate how the combination of responses and reactions that emerge over time lead to evaluative outcomes such as satisfaction.

The effective study on the emergence of customer experience necessitates the development of more dynamic measurement instruments. Current measures of customer experience often only provide a snapshot (e.g., Brakus et al. 2009 ; Ding and Tseng 2015 ). Considering the multitude of potential relevant customer experience stimuli and the active role of customers in forming their own journey (Edelman and Singer 2015 ; Heinonen et al. 2010 ), a possible avenue for research would be the development of self-adaptive scales or surveys where respondents can self-select parts of the journey that they found relevant and the types of responses they experienced. Research supporting the development of such instruments is available (e.g., Calinescu et al. 2013 ) but has not as yet been applied in the customer experience context. While a measurement instrument that captures a complete multilevel framework of the customer journey would become unmanageable, a self-adaptive scale would allow respondents to focus on touchpoints and even on specific cues that are the most relevant for the customer experience. A more dynamic measurement of customer experience would also enable analyzing what types of customer responses emerge in different touchpoints or phases of the customer journey.

Key contingencies for customer experience

Researchers generally agree that customer experience is subjective and specific to the context. This means that contextual variables related to the customer and the broader environment influence customer responses to stimuli and evaluative outcomes of customer experience. However, the current research on these contingencies is fragmented and lacks a uniform view. Within the managerial research tradition, the role of contextual variables is rather peripheral. These studies often investigate a limited number of contextual variables or dismiss their effect altogether. Some typical contextual variables that are studied include consumer attitudes, task orientation, and socio-demographic variables (e.g., Ngobo 2005 ; Verhoef et al. 2009 ). The research tradition that views customer experience as responses to consumption processes places a greater emphasis on the customer context, acknowledging the role of complementary offerings and service providers, institutions and institutional arrangements, and the customer’s goals in the consumption situation (Akaka and Vargo 2015 ; Tax et al. 2013 ; Woodward and Holbrook 2013 ).

Again, insights across research traditions have seldom been combined. To reconcile this shortcoming, we categorize the contingencies used in the extant studies and identify the key ways in which they operate. Our literature review enabled the identification of three groups: (1) customer, (2) situational, and (3) sociocultural contingencies. Customer contingencies refer to the customer’s characteristics such as personality, values, and socio-demographic characters (e.g., Holbrook and Hirschman 1982 ), resources such as time, skills, and knowledge (e.g., Novak et al. 2000 ), past experiences and expectations (e.g., Verhoef et al. 2009 ), customer participation and activities during the journey (e.g., Patrício et al. 2008 ), motivations (e.g., Evanschitzky et al. 2014 ), and the fit of the offering with the customer’s lifeworld (e.g., Schmitt 1999 ).

Situational contingencies are those related to the immediate context, such as the type of store the customer is interacting with (e.g., Lemke et al. 2011 ), the presence of other customers and companions (e.g., Grove and Fisk 1992 ; Schouten et al. 2007 ), and other stakeholders that contribute to the customer experience, such as other firms (e.g., Tax et al. 2013 ). Sociocultural contingencies refer to the broader system in which customers are embedded, such as language, practices, meanings (e.g., Schembri 2009 ), cultural aspects (e.g., Evanschitzky et al. 2014 ), and societal norms and rules (e.g., Akaka and Vargo 2015 ; Åkesson et al. 2014 ).

Our literature review indicates that these contingency factors can affect the customer experience through two alternative routes. First, these factors can make some stimuli more or less recognizable; in other words, they play the role of a moderator between offering-related stimuli and customer experience (Jüttner et al. 2013 ). Second, such contingencies can affect the evaluative outcomes of particular customer responses (Heinonen et al. 2010 ). For example, a feeling of fear can have negative effects in a dentist’s office, but in a context such as river rafting, that response may have positive implications (Arnould and Price 1993 ). Therefore, any particular response to offering-related stimuli is not “universally good” or “universally bad”; its evaluation instead depends on its fit with the customer’s processes and goals.

Altogether, this discussion organizes the fragmented literature around contingencies for customer experience, as summarized in Premise 3:

Customer experience is subjective and context-specific, because responses to offering-related stimuli and their evaluative outcomes depend on customer, situational, and sociocultural contingencies.

Implications of Premise 3 for future research

While the extant literature agrees on the subjective nature of experiences and recommends that managers ensure their customer experience stimuli have a good fit with the customer’s situational context (e.g., Homburg et al. 2015 ; Kuehnl et al. 2019 ), it does not offer much guidance on the identification and role of key contingencies for customer experience. More systematic research is thus needed on the relevant contextual variables and their effects on the strength and direction of the relationships between offering-related stimuli, customer experience, and evaluative outcomes. The extant empirical research has addressed a relatively narrow set of contextual contingencies, and new insights can be generated, for example, by drawing from research within the interpretative research tradition that has placed a strong emphasis on sociocultural factors beyond the firm–customer interface (e.g., Akaka and Vargo 2015 ; Åkesson et al. 2014 ). In particular, researchers could study the role of institutions and institutional arrangements, as they direct the customer’s attention to particular stimuli in the environment (Thornton et al. 2012 ), but are seldom studied as contingency factors in empirical research on customer experience. Future research could look beyond customer experience research to identify potentially relevant contingencies for customer experience formation.

Customer experience research is often preoccupied with the question of how to provide “good experiences,” simply assuming that higher scores on a customer experience scale are always better (e.g., Ding and Tseng 2015 ). As Premise 3 suggests, it is more relevant to ask for whom a particular experience is good . Future studies should aim to identify relevant key contingences that drive particular customer responses to stimuli and influence a customer’s evaluation of their responses. This insight will aid managers in developing a more individualized set of offering-related stimuli for their different target groups and user personas, which is deemed important in current markets (Edelman and Singer 2015 ).

Role of the firm in customer experience

The fourth premise seeks to settle a seemingly profound discrepancy between the two research traditions: Can firms manage the customer experience? Some studies refer to the customer experience as something created and offered to customers (e.g., Hamilton and Wagner 2014 ; Pine and Gilmore 1998 ), but others emphasize its emergence in customers’ lifeworlds and suggest it cannot be managed directly (Heinonen et al. 2010 ; Helkkula and Kelleher 2010 ). This discrepancy can be solved by building on the common ground of the two research traditions that sees customer experience emerging as customer responses to diverse stimuli. As firms cannot control customer responses, they cannot create the customer experience per se, but they can seek to affect the stimuli to which customers respond.

Studies within the managerial tradition provide guidance on designing and integrating stimuli in firm-controlled touchpoints to ensure positive customer experience (e.g., Brakus et al. 2009 ; Grace and O’Cass 2004 ; Pine and Gilmore 1998 ). Although this research tradition acknowledges that touchpoints outside the firm’s control (e.g., other customers) might greatly influence customer experience (e.g., Grove and Fisk 1992 ), it says very little about what firms can do regarding these stimuli.

Studies that view customer experience as responses to consumption processes offer some guidelines for addressing the uncontrollable touchpoints. For example, Carú and Cova ( 2015 ) advise firms to monitor and react to customers’ collective practices with other consumers. Tax et al. ( 2013 ) suggest that firms should identify other firms that are part of the consumer journey, then partner with these organizations to improve the overall customer experience. Some authors suggest that firms should try to identify all stakeholders that influence the customer journey (e.g., Patrício et al. 2011 ; Teixeira et al. 2012 ). Mapping offering-related stimuli as holistically as possible helps firms design offerings that better fit into customers’ lives (Heinonen et al. 2010 ; Patrício et al. 2011 ). Thus, firms can use their knowledge of external stimuli and contextual factors to their advantage, even though they cannot control such factors.

In sum, to reconcile the disparate streams of extant research, we propose the following:

Firms cannot create the customer experience, but they can monitor, design, and manage a range of stimuli that affect such experiences.

Implications of Premise 4 for future research

Only few attempts have been made to delineate what customer experience management entails (e.g., Homburg et al. 2015 ), and this topic remains insufficiently understood despite its practical relevance. The extant research offers some guidelines for “well-designed journeys” (e.g., Kuehnl et al. 2019 ), but more research is needed to specify management activities that are suited to different types of touchpoints.

According to our literature review, a particularly critical gap in extant knowledge relates to the firm’s possibilities of affecting touchpoints outside of the firm’s control. Service design research offers tools for mapping a broader constellation of touchpoints, but there is scant research on how firms can deal with touchpoints external to the firm–customer interface. Potential future research topics include, for example, how firms can design touchpoints that are adaptive to stimuli residing in external touchpoints and whether firms can influence how customers respond to stimuli at external touchpoints along their journey.

We recommend that future research should ground customer experience management models on a more nuanced conceptual understanding of experience. These models should not consider “good experience” as the goal of customer experience management, but instead define the content of the intended customer experience (cf. Premise 1). In our sample, only a few studies address the specific responses and reactions that firms want to trigger: For example, Bolton et al. ( 2014 ) show three types of intended experiences (e.g., emotionally engaged experiences) and give suggestions on how to trigger them. By focusing on the “good vs. bad” dichotomy of customer experience, studies about customer experience management seem to skip this important step and focus directly on the stimuli to which customers respond (cf. e.g., Lemke et al. 2011 ). A focus on intended responses and reactions would complement this research and provide more precise implications on the management of firm-controlled stimuli.

Another critical gap in the research knowledge on customer experience management relates to the issue of contextual factors. The effect of managerial action depends on how well it resonates with the customers, their situation, and sociocultural context (Heinonen et al. 2010 ); hence, insights into the environment where customers interact with the offering-related stimuli are critical. The extant knowledge on the relevance and fit of particular management activities with particular contexts, situations, and types of customers is very scarce. For example, future research could explore how customer contingencies for customer experience formation (see Premise 3) can be used in segmentation and how management processes should be adapted to ensure the desired effects.

Table 5 summarizes the developed premises that conceptualize customer experience as well as guidelines and suggestions for future research.

Conclusions

Theoretical contributions.

This study undertakes a rigorous development of an integrative view of customer experience, captured in four fundamental premises that can anchor future customer experience research. We highlight four specific conceptual contributions. First, this study differentiates the customer experience concept and the bodies of research that study it (MacInnis 2011 ) (Table 4 ). Then it defines two distinct research traditions that study customer experience: customer experience as responses to managerial stimuli and customer experience as responses to consumption processes (Fig. 1 ). This differentiation facilitates comparisons across research streams and creates the conditions for their integration (MacInnis 2011 ). The metatheoretical analysis makes different assumptions underpinning customer experience research visible and articulates the key differences between literature fields and research traditions, providing a state-of-the-art description of research in the customer experience domain (cf. Palmatier et al. 2018 ). This helps researchers make sense of the conflicting research findings in the previous literature, position their research, and take note of the conceptual boundaries of their chosen literature field.

Second, we integrate the customer experience literature and draw connections among entities, then provide a simplified, higher-order synthesis that accommodates this knowledge (MacInnis 2011 ). Specifically, our analysis provides four fundamental premises of customer experience that integrate common and distinct yet compatible elements across the previously distinct bodies of research, solving key conflicts in the existing research (Table 5 ). Previous literature reviews (Table 1 ) have highlighted differences across customer experience characterizations (Helkkula 2011 ), contextual lenses (Lipkin 2016 ), and theoretical perspectives (Kranzbühler et al. 2018 ), but our study is unique in that it seeks to transcend these individual differences and reconcile the disparate literature. The integration of extant knowledge in a conceptual domain is an important step for advancing science (Palmatier et al. 2018 ); it is particularly valuable for the fragmented customer experience domain hosting a great variety of definitions, dimensions, and analysis levels that create considerable challenges for researchers and hamper the conceptual advancement of the field (Chaney et al. 2018 ; Kranzbühler et al. 2018 ; McColl-Kennedy et al. 2015 ).

Third, the fundamental premises we propose delineate the customer experience concept; they “describe an entity and identify things that should be considered in its study” (MacInnis 2011 , p. 144). The proposed premises serve to reconcile and extend the research domain, as well as resolve definitional ambiguities (Palmatier et al. 2018 ), by delineating what customer experience is, what it is not, how it emerges, and to what extent it can be managed. We argue that the four premises establish the core of the conceptual domain of customer experience and are generalizable across settings and contexts. Few, if any, earlier studies have offered general guidelines for the rapidly growing field of customer experience research, let alone such that are based on a systematic, theoretical analysis of the body of experience research.

Fourth, this paper provides clear guidelines and implications for continued research on customer experience (Table 5 ). Each premise explicates the constituents and boundaries of the customer experience concept and what they mean for its study. We also explicate how researchers within each research tradition can enrich their studies by learning from previously somewhat overlooked experience research conducted within the other tradition.

Applying the premises developed in this study in continued research should facilitate the advancement of science and the generalization of the findings by enabling the different fields and research traditions to speak the same language and establish a more complete view of the conceptual domain. Naturally, customer experience researchers from various fields will continue to hold different assumptions about the nature of reality and how customer experience should be studied; however, these differences should not mean that the concept of customer experience means different things in the marketing literature. The integrative understanding offered in this study is the needed step toward the development of a more unified customer experience theory.

Managerial implications

A better delineation and integration of customer experience research also benefits managerial practice. We determine that customer experience comprises many types of customer responses and reactions that can vary in nature and strength (Premise 1). Instead of just seeking to create “positive” or “memorable” customer experiences, firms should define their intended customer experience with finer nuances. Depending on their value proposition, firms can determine which customer responses and reactions they hope to trigger. For some firms, a weak or mitigated response will be preferable for some touchpoints, such as a hassle-free cleaning service that the customer does not need to think about, or a dentist’s office that reduces excitement and fear. Other value propositions may aim to trigger strong, extraordinary emotional or sensorial experiences, as in the case of an amusement park (Zomerdijk and Voss 2010 ). Firms should thus develop unique customer experience measures to capture different types of customer responses. Using perceived quality or customer satisfaction as proxies to measure customer experience limits the understanding of the true nature of the customer experience that the offering evokes.

After establishing the intended customer experience, firms should map the consumer journey to identify which offering-related stimuli are likely to influence these customer responses and reactions. We propose an integrated view of versatile sources of stimuli along this journey, which is broader than what any single literature field can provide. A useful starting point would be to analyze offering-related stimuli at multiple levels of aggregation (Premise 2). Firms should be careful not to focus exclusively on individual touchpoints (e.g., a physical service encounter) or cues (e.g., website functionality) but rather should consider the multiplicity of and connectivity between stimuli and touchpoints customers encounter along their journeys. Such an effort may require collaborative collections of customer data with partners in the service delivery network. Ethnographic research can be used to understand stimuli in external touchpoints, and ultimately how offerings fits with customers’ lifeworlds. For example, Edvardsson et al. ( 2005 ) describe how IKEA designers observe customers in their houses, then create offerings that match those customers’ everyday experiences.

When mapping the consumer journey, firms should be aware that customer responses to stimuli also depend on customer, situational, and sociocultural contingencies (Premise 3). Therefore, customers in different situations and positions, with different resources, will likely react to particular stimuli in varied ways. Moreover, contextual factors may influence the evaluative outcomes of particular stimuli, such as the degree to which a particular reaction leads to satisfaction and loyalty. We urge firms to conduct customer research to learn about the connections among customer personas, usage situations, and responses to stimuli. These insights can be used as a basis for segmentation and to design different types of journeys for distinct customer types and situations.

Firms should also consider how norms, practices, and values in the customer’s context affect their experiences (cf. Akaka and Vargo 2015 ). Presenting offering-related stimuli that clash with such higher-order institutional arrangements will likely trigger strong reactions because they deviate from norms. The famous Benetton UnHate campaign is an example of an advertising stimulus that triggered strong affective and cognitive responses by creating surprising confrontations with prevailing institutions (cf. Hill 2011 ).

Determining intended customer responses and relevant stimuli for achieving them thus are prerequisites for managing customer experiences (Premise 4). The integrative view of customer experience offered in this study highlights the importance of both controllable stimuli (e.g., servicescape; Grace and O’Cass 2004 ) and those that exist outside the firm’s control (e.g., customer goals, ecosystems; Akaka and Vargo 2015 ). Firms should make an effort to design controllable touchpoints to facilitate the intended customer experience, but also develop methods to understand, monitor, and respond to stimuli their customers face in touchpoints that are beyond firm control. Firms can potentially adopt a facilitator role in some external touchpoints, for example, by providing platforms where customers can interact (e.g., Trudeau and Shobeiri 2016 ) or partnering with stakeholders that control external touchpoints (e.g., Baron and Harris 2010). Firms should constantly monitor the stimuli their customers confront in external touchpoints—for example in social media—and consider opportunities for adapting firm-controlled touchpoints accordingly, to leverage external stimuli supportive of the intended experience and mitigate stimuli causing dissonance.

Limitations

The results should be understood in light of some limitations. First, our systematic literature review did not capture studies that might address customer experience-related phenomena but that use different terminology or that focus on particular customer responses without connecting them to customer experience. However, the procedure of back-tracking articles reduced the risk of excluding seminal research on customer experience. Second, the decision to adopt strict criteria for article inclusion may have limited the results (e.g., excluding book chapters or papers published in languages other than English). Although this approach allowed us to analyze the 136 articles with greater rigor, we also acknowledge that the results may have differed if we had considered related concepts or adopted looser inclusion criteria. Despite these limitations, we are confident that the development of these fundamental premises of customer experience and their research implications will help scholars address this extremely important managerial priority.

We recognize that this is a simplistic division. We do not categorize researchers as positivists or interpretivists but approximate researchers’ assumptions as more positivist or more interpretive to varying degrees.

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Appendix 1: Conducting the systematic literature review

Figure 3 presents an overview of the systematic literature review process.

Systematic literature review process

After reading articles about customer experience to familiarize ourselves with the phenomenon and help us decide on the methodological procedures (Booth et al. 2012 ; Littell et al. 2008 ), we established the criteria for the systematic literature review. We searched articles in the EBSCO Business Source Complete and Science Direct databases with the following keywords, separated by the term “OR”: “experiential marketing,” “service experience,” “customer experience,” “consumer experience,” and “consumption experience.” One of these keywords had to be present in the title, abstract, or keywords (e.g., Danese et al. 2018 ). We conducted the search in early May 2016 and did not set any temporal limits.

In the screening phase, we excluded all articles that were written in a language other than English, were outside the marketing scope, were not published in peer-reviewed journals, and were editorials, comments, or repeated articles. Then, we evaluated the relevance of each article to our study according to three criteria, such that it had to (1) refer to business-to-customer or general customer experience, (2) include customer experience (or related terms) as a central concept (Danese et al. 2018 ), and (3) provide a definition and/or characterization of customer experience (Helkkula 2011 ). In applying these criteria, we first reviewed the title and abstract, and, if necessary, skimmed or read the full article (Booth et al. 2012 ; Littell et al. 2008 ). These processes resulted in 142 articles to be analyzed.

Appendix 2: Metatheoretical analysis

We used content analysis to analyze the articles (Booth et al. 2012 ), reading them in chronological order within each literature field. The first step involved extracting material from the articles and transferring it to a codebook (Littell et al. 2008 ). To increase coding objectivity, we developed a frame of reference with explicit detailed procedures and coding rules (Littell et al. 2008 ). The codebook included variables that operationalized the key elements of the metatheoretical analysis; that is, phenomena and metatheoretical assumptions (see Table 3 ). To code the articles, we constantly went back and forth between the studies being analyzed and the frame of reference.

In the second step, we extracted material from the codebook to describe the phenomena and metatheoretical assumptions. To analyze the phenomena , we grouped similar codes to form theoretical dimensions. These theoretical dimensions aided our understanding of what customer experience is and how it is characterized in each literature field. For the ontological , epistemological, and methodological assumptions , we counted instances of codes to describe the metatheoretical assumptions in each literature field (contextualizing according to the understanding obtained by reading articles in each literature field).

Next, we developed a theoretical map, which we defined as a spatial allocation of different literature fields according to particular theoretical criteria. The description and comparison of the phenomena and metatheoretical assumptions in each literature field (i.e., the theoretical criteria) resulted in two higher-order research traditions: customer experience as responses to managerial stimuli and customer experience as responses to consumption processes.

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Becker, L., Jaakkola, E. Customer experience: fundamental premises and implications for research. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 48 , 630–648 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00718-x

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The past, present, and future of consumer research

Maayan s. malter.

1 Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, NY USA

Morris B. Holbrook

Barbara e. kahn.

2 The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA USA

Jeffrey R. Parker

3 Department of Marketing, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL USA

Donald R. Lehmann

In this article, we document the evolution of research trends (concepts, methods, and aims) within the field of consumer behavior, from the time of its early development to the present day, as a multidisciplinary area of research within marketing. We describe current changes in retailing and real-world consumption and offer suggestions on how to use observations of consumption phenomena to generate new and interesting consumer behavior research questions. Consumption continues to change with technological advancements and shifts in consumers’ values and goals. We cannot know the exact shape of things to come, but we polled a sample of leading scholars and summarize their predictions on where the field may be headed in the next twenty years.

Introduction

Beginning in the late 1950s, business schools shifted from descriptive and practitioner-focused studies to more theoretically driven and academically rigorous research (Dahl et al. 1959 ). As the field expanded from an applied form of economics to embrace theories and methodologies from psychology, sociology, anthropology, and statistics, there was an increased emphasis on understanding the thoughts, desires, and experiences of individual consumers. For academic marketing, this meant that research not only focused on the decisions and strategies of marketing managers but also on the decisions and thought processes on the other side of the market—customers.

Since then, the academic study of consumer behavior has evolved and incorporated concepts and methods, not only from marketing at large but also from related social science disciplines, and from the ever-changing landscape of real-world consumption behavior. Its position as an area of study within a larger discipline that comprises researchers from diverse theoretical backgrounds and methodological training has stirred debates over its identity. One article describes consumer behavior as a multidisciplinary subdiscipline of marketing “characterized by the study of people operating in a consumer role involving acquisition, consumption, and disposition of marketplace products, services, and experiences” (MacInnis and Folkes 2009 , p. 900).

This article reviews the evolution of the field of consumer behavior over the past half century, describes its current status, and predicts how it may evolve over the next twenty years. Our review is by no means a comprehensive history of the field (see Schumann et al. 2008 ; Rapp and Hill 2015 ; Wang et al. 2015 ; Wilkie and Moore 2003 , to name a few) but rather focuses on a few key thematic developments. Though we observe many major shifts during this period, certain questions and debates have persisted: Does consumer behavior research need to be relevant to marketing managers or is there intrinsic value from studying the consumer as a project pursued for its own sake? What counts as consumption: only consumption from traditional marketplace transactions or also consumption in a broader sense of non-marketplace interactions? Which are the most appropriate theoretical traditions and methodological tools for addressing questions in consumer behavior research?

A brief history of consumer research over the past sixty years—1960 to 2020

In 1969, the Association for Consumer Research was founded and a yearly conference to share marketing research specifically from the consumer’s perspective was instituted. This event marked the culmination of the growing interest in the topic by formalizing it as an area of research within marketing (consumer psychology had become a formalized branch of psychology within the APA in 1960). So, what was consumer behavior before 1969? Scanning current consumer-behavior doctoral seminar syllabi reveals few works predating 1969, with most of those coming from psychology and economics, namely Herbert Simon’s A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice (1955), Abraham Maslow’s A Theory of Human Motivation (1943), and Ernest Dichter’s Handbook of Consumer Motivations (1964). In short, research that illuminated and informed our understanding of consumer behavior prior to 1969 rarely focused on marketing-specific topics, much less consumers or consumption (Dichter’s handbook being a notable exception). Yet, these works were crucial to the rise of consumer behavior research because, in the decades after 1969, there was a shift within academic marketing to thinking about research from a behavioral or decision science perspective (Wilkie and Moore 2003 ). The following section details some ways in which this shift occurred. We draw on a framework proposed by the philosopher Larry Laudan ( 1986 ), who distinguished among three inter-related aspects of scientific inquiry—namely, concepts (the relevant ideas, theories, hypotheses, and constructs); methods (the techniques employed to test and validate these concepts); and aims (the purposes or goals that motivate the investigation).

Key concepts in the late - 1960s

During the late-1960s, we tended to view the buyer as a computer-like machine for processing information according to various formal rules that embody economic rationality to form a preference for one or another option in order to arrive at a purchase decision. This view tended to manifest itself in a couple of conspicuous ways. The first was a model of buyer behavior introduced by John Howard in 1963 in the second edition of his marketing textbook and quickly adopted by virtually every theorist working in our field—including, Howard and Sheth (of course), Engel-Kollat-&-Blackwell, Franco Nicosia, Alan Andreasen, Jim Bettman, and Joel Cohen. Howard’s great innovation—which he based on a scheme that he had found in the work of Plato (namely, the linkages among Cognition, Affect, and Conation)—took the form of a boxes-and-arrows formulation heavily influenced by the approach to organizational behavior theory that Howard (University of Pittsburgh) had picked up from Herbert Simon (Carnegie Melon University). The model represented a chain of events

where I = inputs of information (from advertising, word-of-mouth, brand features, etc.); C = cognitions (beliefs or perceptions about a brand); A = Affect (liking or preference for the brand); B = behavior (purchase of the brand); and S = satisfaction (post-purchase evaluation of the brand that feeds back onto earlier stages of the sequence, according to a learning model in which reinforced behavior tends to be repeated). This formulation lay at the heart of Howard’s work, which he updated, elaborated on, and streamlined over the remainder of his career. Importantly, it informed virtually every buyer-behavior model that blossomed forth during the last half of the twentieth century.

To represent the link between cognitions and affect, buyer-behavior researchers used various forms of the multi-attribute attitude model (MAAM), originally proposed by psychologists such as Fishbein and Rosenberg as part of what Fishbein and Ajzen ( 1975 ) called the theory of reasoned action. Under MAAM, cognitions (beliefs about brand attributes) are weighted by their importance and summed to create an explanation or prediction of affect (liking for a brand or preference for one brand versus another), which in turn determines behavior (choice of a brand or intention to purchase a brand). This took the work of economist Kelvin Lancaster (with whom Howard interacted), which assumed attitude was based on objective attributes, and extended it to include subjective ones (Lancaster 1966 ; Ratchford 1975 ). Overall, the set of concepts that prevailed in the late-1960s assumed the buyer exhibited economic rationality and acted as a computer-like information-processing machine when making purchase decisions.

Favored methods in the late-1960s

The methods favored during the late-1960s tended to be almost exclusively neo-positivistic in nature. That is, buyer-behavior research adopted the kinds of methodological rigor that we associate with the physical sciences and the hypothetico-deductive approaches advocated by the neo-positivistic philosophers of science.

Thus, the accepted approaches tended to be either experimental or survey based. For example, numerous laboratory studies tested variations of the MAAM and focused on questions about how to measure beliefs, how to weight the beliefs, how to combine the weighted beliefs, and so forth (e.g., Beckwith and Lehmann 1973 ). Here again, these assumed a rational economic decision-maker who processed information something like a computer.

Seeking rigor, buyer-behavior studies tended to be quantitative in their analyses, employing multivariate statistics, structural equation models, multidimensional scaling, conjoint analysis, and other mathematically sophisticated techniques. For example, various attempts to test the ICABS formulation developed simultaneous (now called structural) equation models such as those deployed by Farley and Ring ( 1970 , 1974 ) to test the Howard and Sheth ( 1969 ) model and by Beckwith and Lehmann ( 1973 ) to measure halo effects.

Aims in the late-1960s

During this time period, buyer-behavior research was still considered a subdivision of marketing research, the purpose of which was to provide insights useful to marketing managers in making strategic decisions. Essentially, every paper concluded with a section on “Implications for Marketing Managers.” Authors who failed to conform to this expectation could generally count on having their work rejected by leading journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research ( JMR ) and the Journal of Marketing ( JM ).

Summary—the three R’s in the late-1960s

Starting in the late-1960s to the early-1980s, virtually every buyer-behavior researcher followed the traditional approach to concepts, methods, and aims, now encapsulated under what we might call the three R’s —namely, rationality , rigor , and relevance . However, as we transitioned into the 1980s and beyond, that changed as some (though by no means all) consumer researchers began to expand their approaches and to evolve different perspectives.

Concepts after 1980

In some circles, the traditional emphasis on the buyer’s rationality—that is, a view of the buyer as a rational-economic, decision-oriented, information-processing, computer-like machine for making choices—began to evolve in at least two primary ways.

First, behavioral economics (originally studied in marketing under the label Behavioral Decision Theory)—developed in psychology by Kahneman and Tversky, in economics by Thaler, and applied in marketing by a number of forward-thinking theorists (e.g., Eric Johnson, Jim Bettman, John Payne, Itamar Simonson, Jay Russo, Joel Huber, and more recently, Dan Ariely)—challenged the rationality of consumers as decision-makers. It was shown that numerous commonly used decision heuristics depart from rational choice and are exceptions to the traditional assumptions of economic rationality. This trend shed light on understanding consumer financial decision-making (Prelec and Loewenstein 1998 ; Gourville 1998 ; Lynch Jr 2011 ) and how to develop “nudges” to help consumers make better decisions for their personal finances (summarized in Johnson et al. 2012 ).

Second, the emerging experiential view (anticipated by Alderson, Levy, and others; developed by Holbrook and Hirschman, and embellished by Schmitt, Pine, and Gilmore, and countless followers) regarded consumers as flesh-and-blood human beings (rather than as information-processing computer-like machines), focused on hedonic aspects of consumption, and expanded the concepts embodied by ICABS (Table ​ (Table1 1 ).

Extended ICABS Framework after 1980

Methods after 1980

The two burgeoning areas of research—behavioral economics and experiential theories—differed in their methodological approaches. The former relied on controlled randomized experiments with a focus on decision strategies and behavioral outcomes. For example, experiments tested the process by which consumers evaluate options using information display boards and “Mouselab” matrices of aspects and attributes (Payne et al. 1988 ). This school of thought also focused on behavioral dependent measures, such as choice (Huber et al. 1982 ; Simonson 1989 ; Iyengar and Lepper 2000 ).

The latter was influenced by post-positivistic philosophers of science—such as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Richard Rorty—and approaches expanded to include various qualitative techniques (interpretive, ethnographic, humanistic, and even introspective methods) not previously prominent in the field of consumer research. These included:

• Interpretive approaches —such as those drawing on semiotics and hermeneutics—in an effort to gain a richer understanding of the symbolic meanings involved in consumption experiences;
• Ethnographic approaches — borrowed from cultural anthropology—such as those illustrated by the influential Consumer Behavior Odyssey (Belk et al. 1989 ) and its discoveries about phenomena related to sacred aspects of consumption or the deep meanings of collections and other possessions;
• Humanistic approaches —such as those borrowed from cultural studies or from literary criticism and more recently gathered together under the general heading of consumer culture theory ( CCT );
• Introspective or autoethnographic approaches —such as those associated with a method called subjective personal introspection ( SPI ) that various consumer researchers like Sidney Levy and Steve Gould have pursued to gain insights based on their own private lives.

These qualitative approaches tended not to appear in the more traditional journals such as the Journal of Marketing , Journal of Marketing Research , or Marketing Science . However, newer journals such as Consumption, Markets, & Culture and Marketing Theory began to publish papers that drew on the various interpretive, ethnographic, humanistic, or introspective methods.

Aims after 1980

In 1974, consumer research finally got its own journal with the launch of the Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR ). The early editors of JCR —especially Bob Ferber, Hal Kassarjian, and Jim Bettman—held a rather divergent attitude about the importance or even the desirability of managerial relevance as a key goal of consumer studies. Under their influence, some researchers began to believe that consumer behavior is a phenomenon worthy of study in its own right—purely for the purpose of understanding it better. The journal incorporated articles from an array of methodologies: quantitative (both secondary data analysis and experimental techniques) and qualitative. The “right” balance between theoretical insight and substantive relevance—which are not in inherent conflict—is a matter of debate to this day and will likely continue to be debated well into the future.

Summary—the three I’s after 1980

In sum, beginning in the early-1980s, consumer research branched out. Much of the work in consumer studies remained within the earlier tradition of the three R’s—that is, rationality (an information-processing decision-oriented buyer), rigor (neo-positivistic experimental designs and quantitative techniques), and relevance (usefulness to marketing managers). Nonetheless, many studies embraced enlarged views of the three major aspects that might be called the three I’s —that is, irrationality (broadened perspectives that incorporate illogical, heuristic, experiential, or hedonic aspects of consumption), interpretation (various qualitative or “postmodern” approaches), and intrinsic motivation (the joy of pursuing a managerially irrelevant consumer study purely for the sake of satisfying one’s own curiosity, without concern for whether it does or does not help a marketing practitioner make a bigger profit).

The present—the consumer behavior field today

Present concepts.

In recent years, technological changes have significantly influenced the nature of consumption as the customer journey has transitioned to include more interaction on digital platforms that complements interaction in physical stores. This shift poses a major conceptual challenge in understanding if and how these technological changes affect consumption. Does the medium through which consumption occurs fundamentally alter the psychological and social processes identified in earlier research? In addition, this shift allows us to collect more data at different stages of the customer journey, which further allows us to analyze behavior in ways that were not previously available.

Revisiting the ICABS framework, many of the previous concepts are still present, but we are now addressing them through a lens of technological change (Table ​ (Table2 2 ). In recent years, a number of concepts (e.g., identity, beliefs/lay theories, affect as information, self-control, time, psychological ownership, search for meaning and happiness, social belonging, creativity, and status) have emerged as integral factors that influence and are influenced by consumption. To better understand these concepts, a number of influential theories from social psychology have been adopted into consumer behavior research. Self-construal (Markus and Kitayama 1991 ), regulatory focus (Higgins 1998 ), construal level (Trope and Liberman 2010 ), and goal systems (Kruglanski et al. 2002 ) all provide social-cognition frameworks through which consumer behavior researchers study the psychological processes behind consumer behavior. This “adoption” of social psychological theories into consumer behavior is a symbiotic relationship that further enhances the theories. Tory Higgins happily stated that he learned more about his own theories from the work of marketing academics (he cited Angela Lee and Michel Pham) in further testing and extending them.

ICABS framework in the digital age

Present Methods

Not only have technological advancements changed the nature of consumption but they have also significantly influenced the methods used in consumer research by adding both new sources of data and improved analytical tools (Ding et al. 2020 ). Researchers continue to use traditional methods from psychology in empirical research (scale development, laboratory experiments, quantitative analyses, etc.) and interpretive approaches in qualitative research. Additionally, online experiments using participants from panels such as Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific have become commonplace in the last decade. While they raise concerns about the quality of the data and about the external validity of the results, these online experiments have greatly increased the speed and decreased the cost of collecting data, so researchers continue to use them, albeit with some caution. Reminiscent of the discussion in the 1970s and 1980s about the use of student subjects, the projectability of the online responses and of an increasingly conditioned “professional” group of online respondents (MTurkers) is a major concern.

Technology has also changed research methodology. Currently, there is a large increase in the use of secondary data thanks to the availability of Big Data about online and offline behavior. Methods in computer science have advanced our ability to analyze large corpuses of unstructured data (text, voice, visual images) in an efficient and rigorous way and, thus, to tap into a wealth of nuanced thoughts, feelings, and behaviors heretofore only accessible to qualitative researchers through laboriously conducted content analyses. There are also new neuro-marketing techniques like eye-tracking, fMRI’s, body arousal measures (e.g., heart rate, sweat), and emotion detectors that allow us to measure automatic responses. Lastly, there has been an increase in large-scale field experiments that can be run in online B2C marketplaces.

Present Aims

Along with a focus on real-world observations and data, there is a renewed emphasis on managerial relevance. Countless conference addresses and editorials in JCR , JCP , and other journals have emphasized the importance of making consumer research useful outside of academia—that is, to help companies, policy makers, and consumers. For instance, understanding how the “new” consumer interacts over time with other consumers and companies in the current marketplace is a key area for future research. As global and social concerns become more salient in all aspects of life, issues of long-term sustainability, social equality, and ethical business practices have also become more central research topics. Fortunately, despite this emphasis on relevance, theoretical contributions and novel ideas are still highly valued. An appropriate balance of theory and practice has become the holy grail of consumer research.

The effects of the current trends in real-world consumption will increase in magnitude with time as more consumers are digitally native. Therefore, a better understanding of current consumer behavior can give us insights and help predict how it will continue to evolve in the years to come.

The future—the consumer behavior field in 2040 1

Niels Bohr once said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Indeed, it would be a fool’s errand for a single person to hazard a guess about the state of the consumer behavior field twenty years from now. Therefore, predictions from 34 active consumer researchers were collected to address this task. Here, we briefly summarize those predictions.

Future Concepts

While few respondents proffered guesses regarding specific concepts that would be of interest twenty years from now, many suggested broad topics and trends they expected to see in the field. Expectations for topics could largely be grouped into three main areas. Many suspected that we will be examining essentially the same core topics, perhaps at a finer-grained level, from different perspectives or in ways that we currently cannot utilize due to methodological limitations (more on methods below). A second contingent predicted that much research would center on the impending crises the world faces today, most mentioning environmental and social issues (the COVID-19 pandemic had not yet begun when these predictions were collected and, unsurprisingly, was not anticipated by any of our respondents). The last group, citing the widely expected profound impact of AI on consumers’ lives, argued that AI and other technology-related topics will be dominant subjects in consumer research circa 2040.

While the topic of technology is likely to be focal in the field, our current expectations for the impact of technology on consumers’ lives are narrower than it should be. Rather than merely offering innumerable conveniences and experiences, it seems likely that technology will begin to be integrated into consumers’ thoughts, identities, and personal relationships—probably sooner than we collectively expect. The integration of machines into humans’ bodies and lives will present the field with an expanding list of research questions that do not exist today. For example, how will the concepts of the self, identity, privacy, and goal pursuit change when web-connected technology seamlessly integrates with human consciousness and cognition? Major questions will also need to be answered regarding philosophy of mind, ethics, and social inequality. We suspect that the impact of technology on consumers and consumer research will be far broader than most consumer-behavior researchers anticipate.

As for broader trends within consumer research, there were two camps: (1) those who expect (or hope) that dominant theories (both current and yet to be developed) will become more integrated and comprehensive and (2) those who expect theoretical contributions to become smaller and smaller, to the point of becoming trivial. Both groups felt that current researchers are filling smaller cracks than before, but disagreed on how this would ultimately be resolved.

Future Methods

As was the case with concepts, respondents’ expectations regarding consumer-research methodologies in 2030 can also be divided into three broad baskets. Unsurprisingly, many indicated that we would be using many technologies not currently available or in wide use. Perhaps more surprising was that most cited the use of technology such as AI, machine-learning algorithms, and robots in designing—as opposed to executing or analyzing—experiments. (Some did point to the use of technologies such as virtual reality in the actual execution of experiments.) The second camp indicated that a focus on reliable and replicable results (discussed further below) will encourage a greater tendency for pre-registering studies, more use of “Big Data,” and a demand for more studies per paper (versus more papers per topic, which some believe is a more fruitful direction). Finally, the third lot indicated that “real data” would be in high demand, thereby necessitating the use of incentive-compatible, consequential dependent variables and a greater prevalence of field studies in consumer research.

As a result, young scholars would benefit from developing a “toolkit” of methodologies for collecting and analyzing the abundant new data of interest to the field. This includes (but is not limited to) a deep understanding of designing and implementing field studies (Gerber and Green 2012 ), data analysis software (R, Python, etc.), text mining and analysis (Humphreys and Wang 2018 ), and analytical tools for other unstructured forms of data such as image and sound. The replication crisis in experimental research means that future scholars will also need to take a more critical approach to validity (internal, external, construct), statistical power, and significance in their work.

Future Aims

While there was an air of existential concern about the future of the field, most agreed that the trend will be toward increasing the relevance and reliability of consumer research. Specifically, echoing calls from journals and thought leaders, the respondents felt that papers will need to offer more actionable implications for consumers, managers, or policy makers. However, few thought that this increased focus would come at the expense of theoretical insights, suggesting a more demanding overall standard for consumer research in 2040. Likewise, most felt that methodological transparency, open access to data and materials, and study pre-registration will become the norm as the field seeks to allay concerns about the reliability and meaningfulness of its research findings.

Summary - Future research questions and directions

Despite some well-justified pessimism, the future of consumer research is as bright as ever. As we revised this paper amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear that many aspects of marketplace behavior, consumption, and life in general will change as a result of this unprecedented global crisis. Given this, and the radical technological, social, and environmental changes that loom on the horizon, consumer researchers will have a treasure trove of topics to tackle in the next ten years, many of which will carry profound substantive importance. While research approaches will evolve, the core goals will remain consistent—namely, to generate theoretically insightful, empirically supported, and substantively impactful research (Table ​ (Table3 3 ).

Future consumer behavior research questions

At any given moment in time, the focal concepts, methods, and aims of consumer-behavior scholarship reflect both the prior development of the field and trends in the larger scientific community. However, despite shifting trends, the core of the field has remained constant—namely, to understand the motivations, thought processes, and experiences of individuals as they consume goods, services, information, and other offerings, and to use these insights to develop interventions to improve both marketing strategy for firms and consumer welfare for individuals and groups. Amidst the excitement of new technologies, social trends, and consumption experiences, it is important to look back and remind ourselves of the insights the field has already generated. Effectively integrating these past findings with new observations and fresh research will help the field advance our understanding of consumer behavior.

1 The other papers use 2030 as a target year but we asked our survey respondents to make predictions for 2040 and thus we have a different future target year.

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Main article content, molecular toxicity of popular toothpaste formulations on post-juveniles of clarias gariepinus, g. a. ogunwole, y. f. kolawole, t. e. ayibiowu, o. a. oyewole.

The widespread use of toothpaste containing various chemical formulations has raised concern regarding their potential impact on aquatic ecosystems. This research examines the molecular toxicity of popular toothpaste brands on post-juveniles of C larias gariepinus from a commercial fish farm in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. Specifically assessing the impact of these toothpaste brands on the mRNA expression levels of the heat shock protein (HSP70), interleukin (IL-1β), melatonin receptors (MEL1C), and growth hormone in comparison to a control group. The results revealed a significant upregulation of HSP70, IL-1β, and MEL1C genes in the exposed group, indicating a potential stress response and immune system activation. Intriguingly, the growth hormone mRNA expression remained unaffected in the treated group compared to the control. These findings underscore the need for further exploration into the potential molecular consequences of common toothpaste ingredients on aquatic organisms, raising important questions about environmental safety and consumer product development.

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Article Contents

Definitions of practical relevance.

FIVE DIMENSIONS OF PRACTICAL RELEVANCE IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ENHANCING PRACTICAL RELEVANCE

General discussion, practical relevance in consumer research.

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Wayne D Hoyer, Echo Wen Wan, Keith Wilcox, Practical Relevance in Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research , 2024;, ucae023, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucae023

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There has been a continuing and growing concern over the relevance of the articles published in the Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR ). “Relevance” has been addressed in a number of editorials over time: Mick (2003) , Deighton (2007) , Dahl et al. (2014) , Inman et al. (2018) , and Schmitt et al. (2002) . There is an opinion that, over many years, the articles in JCR have trended toward the interests of academics and do not address the actual problems faced by consumers, firms, and public policy-makers ( Inman et al. 2018 ). Also, there has been concern that much of what appears in JCR is narrow in scope, both in terms of theory and the empirical methods employed. Further, the dependent variables investigated are often lacking in real-world significance.

These concerns have led to calls to increase relevance in consumer research. For example, Wells (1993) argued that “any given piece of research should be designed from the start with a consideration of how it will be useful to audiences it seeks to address” ( Dahl et al. 2014 , iii). According to Dahl et al. (2014) , a single mantra for JCR should be to “make it meaningful” to its audience. The audience includes academics from the founding fields as well as scholars in other fields, consumers, marketing managers, and public policy-makers. Nevertheless, despite these calls, JCR was recently rated the lowest of the premier academic marketing journals on one measure of practical relevance ( Jedidi et al. 2021 ).

In light of this long-lasting dialogue, it is not clear to us that JCR stakeholders possess a good understanding of what “relevance” actually means. For example, Dahl et al. (2014 , iv) argued “there is no single formula or paradigm for producing meaningful consumer research, and we therefore encourage a wide variety of approaches across papers.” Later, Inman et al. (2018 , 955) claimed “Despite long-lasting and heartful ambitions to create a big tent for impactful, consumer-relevant research, we are still far from obtaining that goal.” Finally, according to the current editorial team ( Schmitt et al. 2002 , 753), “the mere fact that it [ relevance ] is revisited with such frequency makes us wonder if speaking about the need for consumer research to be relevant has not been enough. What more can be said?” Moreover, Schmitt et al. (2002 , 754) state “As a field, we need to push ourselves to see how the areas we find personally fascinating link to real-world problems or serious important decisions that people have to make in the marketplace.”

The goal of this article is to introduce a framework for increasing practical relevance in consumer research and illustrate it with recent articles published in JCR . We see this as a necessary (and long overdue) first step in gaining clarity on this issue and advancing the debate. Our framework focuses primarily on experimental research with empirical data. However, we believe it can also be applied to qualitative research. To accomplish this, we begin with a review of the literature on practical relevance. We then present our framework, explain its key dimensions, and identify representative examples from recently published articles. Finally, we close with several recommendations for marketing scholars keen on improving the relevance of their work.

What is practical relevance? The answer to this question is not an easy one as there are numerous views on the topic. Jedidi et al. (2021) recently proposed “an objective and easy-to-use measure of practical relevance” (22) of articles, which they call the Relevance to Marketing Index. Their measure assesses practical relevance in terms of topicality: “the degree of the topical relation between the topics contained in an academic article and topics of marketing practice at a given time” (23). Their perspective hinges on the belief that topical connection (or relation) between academic research and marketing issues, which is context and time dependent, is critical to practical applicability. One can see how topicality is useful, as it simplifies indexing and classification, which is the goal in their paper. Their view is consistent with information science’s objective take on relevance as being “on the topic” (Harter 1992) and the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary’s definition of relevance as being in “relation to the matter at hand” ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relevance ).

Although topicality is a necessary component of practical relevance, many definitions of relevance used by business scholars also focus on whether the information can be utilized as a basis for action. For example, in the marketing literature, Jaworski (2011) defines managerial relevance as “the degree to which a specific manager in an organization perceives academic knowledge to aid his or her job-related thoughts or actions in the pursuit of organizational goals” (212). Similarly, in the management literature, Keiser et al. (2015) argue that research results can be considered practically relevant “if they influence management practice; that is, if they lead to the change, modification, or confirmation of how managers think, talk, or act” (144). The notion that relevance should facilitate action is also discussed in the accounting literature where research is considered relevant if it can be used to either guide practice or set accounting standards ( Leisenring and Johnson 1994 ).

Kohli and Haenlein (2021) suggest that, while relevance matters, importance plays a more significant role in whether research is used by managers. They argue that while most academic research in marketing can be considered “relevant” to the profession, the importance of the research issue determines whether the research will influence practice. Like Jedidi et al. (2021) , they define relevance in terms of topicality (i.e., whether it is connected to an issue). They consider importance to be the number of stakeholders the research affects and the magnitude of the expected change ( Jaworski 2011 ; Kohli and Haenlein 2021 ). They suggest that academics’ extensive focus on relevance, rather than importance, has contributed to the observed decline in the usefulness of academic research in recent years. We agree with these authors that importance matters. We believe that the importance of the issue is a factor that contributes to topicality.

Consistent with these perspectives, we view topicality as being necessary for research to be “relevant” to its audience which, as we will discuss, includes marketers, consumers, or policy-makers. However, for research to be deemed “practical” it must also be useful. Therefore, we consider research to be practically relevant when the findings can, and will, be used as a basis for action by its intended audience. We included “will” in our definition because although the intended audience of a research study may be able to implement its findings, they must also find the insights meaningful enough for taking action. Our framework takes a holistic view to propose that practical relevance in consumer research is shaped by every facet of the research process; from the research problem formulation to how the studies are executed and communicated to the audience. Next, we introduce our framework that focuses on five dimensions of practical relevance.

A number of articles have examined different dimensions of practical relevance. For instance, Benbasat and Zmud (1999) characterize relevance along the dimensions of “interesting,” “applicable,” “current,” and “accessible.” Klein, Jiang, and Saunders (2006) conducted a comprehensive examination of the literature on relevance to propose three dimensions of practical relevance: “importance,” “applicability,” and “accessibility” (see also Rosemann and Vessey 2008 ). We developed our framework ( figure 1 ) using Klein et al.’s as a starting point. However, our model incorporates different stages of the research process (i.e., the research question, study design, and manuscript preparation) since practical relevance is often determined by the way the research is executed.

The first dimension of practical relevance is targeted . As mentioned, while practitioners are the primary audience for most academic research in business fields, the audience for consumer research is broader, encompassing practitioners, policy-makers, and consumers. Since these groups have distinct motivations, interests, and goals, practically relevant research should consider the needs of a specific audience. As illustrated in our model, the extent to which the target audience will use research as a basis for action depends on whether they believe they can apply the findings (i.e., “can I take action?”) and whether the insights are meaningful enough to encourage them to act (i.e., “should I take action?”). Therefore, being targeted not only facilitates action but also motivates action.

The second dimension is topical , which is consistent with Klein et al.’s conceptualization of “importance.” Topical research addresses important issues that its intended audience currently cares about. Thus, this dimension builds off Jedidi et al.’s (2021) definition of topical by incorporating Kohli and Haenlein’s (2021) definition of importance. The more topical the audience finds the research the more motivated they will be to apply the findings. Practically relevant research often begins with the formulation of a topical research question.

The third dimension, actionable , is based on Klein et al.’s dimension called “applicability.” Actionable research makes it easy for its intended audience to apply the findings by offering tangible insights that can be directly translated into a set of actions. Although there are numerous ways to make research more actionable, our framework considers study design to be a particularly relevant aspect of the research process for actionability.

The fourth dimension is consequential , which refers to research that has a meaningful influence on consumer behavior in the real world. If the audience believes the research will have a consequential impact, they will be more motivated to implement the findings. Thus, dependent measures with real-world significance enhance practical relevance. We view study design to also be important for consequential research.

The fifth dimension is interpretable , which Klein et al. refer to as “accessible.” Interpretable research presents every facet of the research, from the definition of the key constructs to the findings, in a manner that can be easily understood by its intended audience. Making research interpretable not only helps the audience understand the findings but also motives them to take action. As such, the manuscript preparation stage of the research process is crucial for making research interpretable.

In the sections that follow, we highlight recent papers that are representative of each dimension. Some papers are discussed multiple times because they are a good illustration of more than one dimension. Table 1 provides a summary of each dimension and the representative papers for each dimension.

REPRESENTATIVE ARTICLES FOR EACH DIMENSION

Targeted research involves clearly identifying a specific group which has special needs or interests related to the research being conducted. A key aspect is that the more specific the audience, the more relevant the research findings will be. Targeting general or multiple audiences will dilute the impact of the research. The target audience must first be ascertained before a discussion of the other four criteria becomes meaningful.

As mentioned previously, there are three main audiences for JCR . These include consumers, marketers/retailers, and corporate responsibility/public policy-makers. In the case of consumers, research has relevance when it can improve consumer welfare or consumers’ lives. In other words, does the research help consumers make better decisions, improve their consumption experience of certain products or services, or improve the quality of how they live their lives? In terms of marketers/retailers, do the findings of the study inform them and help them to make improved decisions and develop more effective marketing strategies? Finally, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/public policy involves companies who wish to make a positive impact on societal issues. It also deals with public policy-makers who want to develop policies and initiate legislation that will protect consumers and improve their lives. In the current section, we will discuss a sample of recent JCR articles which are particularly strong on the targeted dimension for each of the target markets.

In terms of consumers, a particularly critical issue relates to obesity and food consumption. It has been estimated that in the US alone, approximately 42% of the population would be considered obese ( Trust for America’s Health 2022 ). This is a critical issue because obesity can cause long-term health problems and cause economic pressures in society. In light of this, a number of these consumers have the desire to lose weight and become healthier. However, this is often found to be a very difficult task and these consumers are always looking for new and better ways to accomplish this. Van de Veer, Van Herpen, and Van Trijp (2018) propose and find support for one such method which involves mindfulness. This involves an enhanced attention state which enhances consumers’ focus on physiological cues. This is an excellent example of targeted research because mindfulness training can be very useful for consumers who wish to effectively lose weight.

A second target group is that of marketers and retailers. Consumer research has practical relevance when it can help inform or improve marketing strategies which attempt to influence consumer behavior. For example, improving customer satisfaction is a key goal for marketers and retailers. An interesting study by Packard and Berger (2021) offers a prime example of targeted research. The authors demonstrate that a simple shift in the language used by employees can have a positive impact on satisfaction. They found that using more concrete language can improve customer satisfaction and increase willingness to purchase. This finding has clear implications for retailer employee training programs.

Finally, donation behavior or charitable giving and corporate social responsibility have been areas of research with targeted audiences. As one example, companies often engage in CSR efforts by supporting and donating to important causes. A critical question in this regard concerns the type of donation to make. Essentially, companies can make either monetary donations or in-kind contributions (goods or services other than money). An interesting study by Hildebrand, Demotta, Sen, and Valenzuela (2017) is an especially good example of targeted research. The authors find the effectiveness of CSR strategies depends on the type of issue. In-kind contributions are more effective (in terms of consumer evaluations of the company) when the CSR issue is less controllable. Monetary donations lead to more positive consumer evaluations for issues that are more controllable. Again, this information provides useful guidance for any company engaging in CSR activities.

Topical is defined by Cambridge Dictionary as “of interest at the present time; relating to things that are happening at present” ( https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/topical ). Topical research for JCR examines consumer behavior that is situated in the present social and economic environment, relates to the current consumption modes, and is shaped by technological advancement. Topical research also examines current consumer behavior to shape marketing practice and consumer welfare. As mentioned, we view the importance of the issue as playing a role in determining how topical the audience perceives the research to be.

In this vein, Bardhi and Eckhardt (2017) introduced the concept of liquid consumption to help explain consumer behavior in the fast-growing sharing economy enabled by digital revolution. The past decade has witnessed the proliferation of sharing economy across a wide range of products and services. While sharing economy is transforming business, it also raises the question about consumer preference when consumption is through temporary access in the sharing economy which differs from the traditional economy’s consumption through permanent ownership. The authors defined liquid consumption as ephemeral, access based, and dematerialized, and solid consumption as enduring, ownership based, and material. Their conceptualization of ownership along a continuum facilitates understanding consumers’ preference shift in the digital economy, such as shifting from constructing a linear and durable identity to a liquid self in fluid and dispersed social networks, shifting toward fluid attachment to objects, and putting more weights on the usage value (vs. identify value) of the products. Moreover, the authors alert consumers about the potential negative impact of liquid consumption on consumer welfare and propose solutions to address these challenges.

Another excellent example of topical consumer research is Melumad and Pham (2020) that examine consumers’ relationship with the smartphone, a technology device that has gradually become indispensable in consumers’ lives. Early research has mostly accounted people’s attachment to smartphones as a behavioral addition that leads to negative consequences such as disruption at work and degrading interpersonal interactions ( Bianchi and Phillips 2005 ; Vahedi and Saiphoo 2017 ). However, the literature was silent on the psychological mechanism of consumers’ dependence on smartphones. Moreover, as the mobile internet technology evolves (e.g., 5G network debuted in 2019), consumers’ relationship with smartphones also evolves.

Melumad and Pham (2020) identify the unique features of smartphone, in comparison to other technology devices such as laptop, tablet, and voice speaker. First, smartphones are portable. Users can access the vast array of functions on smartphones virtually anytime and anywhere, which makes smartphones highly dependable and reliable. Second, a smartphone offers a sense of privacy. The small screen of the device enables users to engage in activities of their own choosing in a private manner. Third, smartphones are highly personal. People use their smartphones for personal activities, customize the apps according to their personal interests, and keep their own smartphones as personal possessions throughout the day. Fourth, smartphones provide haptic benefits. The ergonomic design and the touching interface make it easy and pleasant to use smartphones. Drawing on the unique combination of these properties, the authors document that smartphones offer psychological comfort to consumers and actually can help relieve stress. Thus, Melumad and Pham (2020) not only offer an explanation for consumers’ seemingly obsessive behavior with their smartphones but also offer a timely update on consumers’ knowledge about the emotional and psychological benefits they can derive by using the device.

Actionable research refers to research that can be directly applied in real-world contexts ( Pearce and Huang 2012 ). It offers tangible insights and provides specific recommendations to guide the actions of the audience. The way the independent variable is presented and operationalized is particularly important for producing actionable research because it is the process of translating the independent variable into a set of actions that allows the audience to influence consumer behavior in the real world. Therefore, research is actionable when the independent variable is presented in an accessible manner and the operationalization of the independent variable is grounded in realism.

An article by Thomas and Kyung (2019) offers a particularly strong example of actionable research because it presents the independent variable in an accessible manner. The authors examine how payment responses elicited through slider scales differ from those elicited through open-ended text boxes. The authors propose that when consumers are asked to provide payment responses on slider scales, they display an end point assimilation effect such that payment responses biased by the visual end points of the scales. As a result, slider scales are shown to elicit higher willingness-to-pay (WTP) responses than text boxes when the scales are in an ascending format (i.e., $0 to a $500 end point). When the scales are in a descending format (i.e., $500 to a $0 end point), however, they elicit lower WTP responses.

The nature of the independent variable makes it accessible since marketing managers (and academics) are familiar with slider scales and text boxes. Yet, it is the way the authors provided evidence for the end point assimilation effect that illustrates how to ensure accessibility. The authors’ theory suggests that if consumers are biased by the visual end points of slider scales, extending the response range should enhance the bias. To test this prediction, the authors had participants engage in an auction for a bottle of wine. Approximately half of participants were asked to bid between $20 and $1,000 on either a slider scale or via a text box. The remaining participants were asked to bid between $20 and $500 on either a slider scale or via a text box. As expected, respondents’ bids on the slider scales were higher compared to those in the text box conditions. Importantly, the difference was larger when the end point was $1,000 compared to when it was $500. These findings not only provide evidence for the authors’ theory but do so in a manner that makes it easy for managers to implement the findings in the real world.

Many studies examining consumer behavior operationalize their independent variable using stylized, artificial scenarios that do not involve actual behavior. Therefore, it is not surprising that audiences of consumer research may ask themselves whether the insights are true ( Morales, Amir, and Lee 2017 ). If the audience doubts the findings will have the desired effect on consumers in the real world, they are unlikely to rely on them, which reduces the practical relevance of the research. Consequently, research becomes actionable when the operationalization of the independent variable is grounded in realism to closely match an actual consumption experience.

The most realistic way to operationalize the independent variable is to conduct a field experiment where the independent variable is manipulated in a real-world setting and participants are unaware that they are taking part in a study during the manipulation. There are times, however, where conducting a field experiment is neither possible nor appropriate. In such situations, researchers can take steps to increase the realism of their study, even if it is conducted in a behavioral lab.

Another excellent example of actionable research is offered by Cian, Krishna, and Elder (2015) because of how the authors enhanced the realism of a lab experiment. The authors examine how warning signs (e.g., “school crossing,” “caution children”) that differ in dynamism influence consumers’ vigilance. The authors show that consumers are more vigilant (e.g., faster to slow down their car) when warning signs (e.g., “caution children”) are designed with dynamic imagery that implies motion compared to similar signs that use static imagery. This occurs because dynamic images indicate more perceived risk to oneself and others.

The topic of the research made it difficult for the authors to test their findings in a real-world setting. A field experiment involving signs that could have different effects on public safety would have a hard time getting approval from most Institutional Review Boards (IRB). Moreover, even if the study received IRB approval, it would require additional approvals from stakeholders, such as government agencies or local businesses, and would require overcoming numerous logistical issues. Therefore, the authors tested their theory in a lab setting, while ensuring the operationalization of their independent variable was grounded in realism. For instance, in one study (study 2), they designed a realistic driving simulation that showed respondents a video from a first-person driving perspective to mimic what people see out of the windshield of a moving car. As participants were “driving,” the simulation presented warning signs and informative signs (e.g., “lodging,” “food”) on the side of the road. Respondents were instructed to press the “w” key anytime they saw a warning sign and the “i” key anytime they saw an informative sign. The time it took respondents to push the correct button after seeing a sign was the dependent measure. Consistent with their theory, respondents’ reaction times were faster when they saw dynamic warning signs compared to static warning signs or informational signs. Thus, even though the study was not conducted in the field, the realism embedded in the operationalization of the independent variable makes this research actionable.

Consequential

Consequential research offers findings that allow the audience to make a meaningful impact on consumer behavior in the real world. Research can be considered consequential when it focuses on demonstrating external valid findings with tangible outcomes that allow for the assessment of its effectiveness and impact. Therefore, the nature of the dependent variable and how it is presented to the audience are important for research to be considered consequential since it is the change in the dependent variable that allows the audience to determine whether the insights will have a meaningful impact.

Research is consequential when the outcomes assessed in the studies are representative of behavior in the real world ( Morales et al. 2017 ). These outcomes frequently involve behaviors that have actual costs (e.g., financial, social) instead of self-reports that do not carry any consequences ( Klein and Hilbig 2019 ). This may involve observing consumer behavior in a field setting or having participants perform a task involving actual behavior in the lab. However, simply because an outcome examined in a study involves actual behavior does not mean it is representative of behavior in the real world. For instance, researchers often use the Stroop task as an outcome variable in studies on self-control ( Chae and Zhu 2014 ). Performance on the Stroop task involves actual behavior (e.g., reaction times) and it is an effective way to provide evidence for a reduction in inhibitory control ( West and Alain 2000 ). However, Stroop task performance is an outcome that has limited practical relevance since the task is not representative of many real-world behaviors.

Van den Bergh et al. (2016) offer a great illustration of consequential research because the outcomes assessed in their studies were representative of real-world behavior. The research examined how changing the flooring in retail spaces influences the pace of in-store traffic. The authors propose and demonstrate that the number, nature, and relative salience of progress markers along a path (e.g., an aisle in a store) can communicate goal progress to consumers and therefore increase their motivation to reach their destination. Consistent with their account they show that customers walk faster when fewer (vs. more) markers are placed in a path because fewer (vs. more) markers give consumers a greater sense of goal progress as they are walking down the path. This research is a great example of consequential research because in the studies, which were conducted in both field and lab settings, actual markers were placed on pathways and participants’ walking speed was observed and recorded. The use of an unobtrusive measure of actual behavior (i.e., walking speed) illustrates how researchers can examine outcomes that are representative of real-world behaviors, even if the study is conducted in the lab. This method was similar to that used by Melumad and Pham (2020) who unobtrusively measured participants’ cellphone interactions in a lab setting.

Consequential research also focuses on outcomes that allow the audience to easily assess its impact. In most experimental studies of consumer behavior, the dependent variable is measured by having respondents indicate a numerical response on a scale. This allows researchers to quantify the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable. However, it is often difficult to translate responses on many of these scales (e.g., a “5” on a 7-point scale) to outcomes in the real world. Therefore, when the measurement of the dependent variable is directly related to a tangible, real-world outcome, research becomes more consequential.

A study by Yang and Hsee (2022) offers an excellent illustration of consequential research that focuses on a tangible outcome. In their research, the authors examine how consumers respond to charitable campaigns that allow donors to publicly communicate their charitable acts (e.g., displaying a donor pin). In a series of studies, they show that obligatory publicity campaigns (e.g., requiring the display of a donor pin) are more effective at getting consumers to participate than voluntary publicity campaigns (i.e., only encouraging the display of a donor pin). This occurs because requiring consumers to publicly display their charitable acts allows them to overcome their concerns about the negative dispositional inferences that others may make about them for engaging in self-promotion.

In one study (study 2), the authors provided evidence for their theory in a field setting on a university campus involving an actual blood drive. Part of the campus was exposed to messages promoting the blood drive that included language indicating that wearing a donor stamp was voluntary. The other part of the campus was exposed to a similar message indicating that wearing the stamp was obligatory. The researchers recorded the number of blood donations received each day. They then constructed the donation rate from the different promotional campaigns by dividing the number of students who participated in the blood drive by the total number of students in each population. This study was consequential not only because the dependent variable (i.e., donation rate) involved actual behavior but also because the measure was directly related to a tangible outcome in the real world. The audience for this research (i.e., charities) can easily determine that the insights will have a meaningful impact in their own charitable campaigns.

Interpretable

Research output cannot have practical relevance if the target audience fails to understand or interpret it. This requirement applies to all the components of a typical scientific article: the core construct, the empirical methods used to tackle the objective, the research findings, and so on. For an article to be interpretable by the intended audience, the authors often must employ language that is less technical (without sacrificing accuracy) and add explanations and examples to help the audience make sense of what they are reading.

Packard and Berger (2021) offer a good illustration of research that is interpretable. As mentioned, the authors examine how linguistic concreteness influences consumer attitudes and behavior. The authors made their insights more interpretable for their target audience (i.e., marketing managers) in several ways. First, they clearly explain that “concreteness describes how much a word refers to an actual, tangible, or ‘real’ entity.” They support their definition with examples that contrast concrete language (e.g., kiss or home ) with abstract language (e.g., love or anywhere ). Additionally, in one experiment (study 4), they manipulate multiple levels of concreteness to illustrate that as language becomes more concrete this increases consumers’ satisfaction and willingness to purchase. Importantly, their description of this study is supported by a table and a figure that clearly displays the language used to manipulate each level of concreteness. Finally, in the General Discussion, they provide a table that provides clear examples of how to make language more concrete. This allows the audience to translate a somewhat ambiguous concept (i.e., linguistic concreteness) into a specific course of action. Cian et al. (2015) offer another example of how to make an ambiguous concept (i.e., dynamic imagery) easy to interpret through their use of images and figures.

Research findings in many articles in JCR can be difficult for the audience to interpret because authors frequently employ complex experimental designs to effectively test their theory and explore boundary conditions. Such designs may provide theoretical richness to the empirical package, but this often comes at the expense of practical relevance since it may be difficult for the audience to understand how the findings can be applied in the real world. To enhance the practical relevance of their findings, authors frequently begin their empirical package with a study that provides illustrative evidence of their theory.

Cai, Bagchi, and Gauri (2016) provide an excellent example of this in their study on boomerang effects for low price discounts. The authors propose that while low price discounts (e.g., 5% off) tend to be effective at promoting sales for essential purchases, low price discounts are less effective than offering no discount for nonessential purchases, which they refer to as a boomerang effect.

They initially tested their theory using illustrative evidence based on scanner data from essential (e.g., cereal) and nonessential (e.g., canned soup) product categories. The authors examined the volume of purchases within each category at different levels of price discount. Consistent with their theory, the results show that in the essential categories, the volume of purchases increased as the price discount increased. However, in the nonessential categories, volume decreased, relative to offering no discount, sales decreased when price discounts were low (i.e., less than 5% off), but then increased once the discounts reached a certain threshold (e.g., over 5% off). One could argue that the findings of this study are open to multiple interpretations (e.g., it could be unique to the categories examined). Yet, their choice to begin the empirical package with evidence from scanner data makes it easier for marketing managers to interpret their findings. They then supported this study with a series of controlled experiments to test their theory and explore boundary conditions.

Implicit in our discussion of the five dimensions are suggestions for improving the practical relevance in consumer behavior research. In this section, we provide more specific and actionable recommendations for doing so (see table 2 for a summary). These include: (1) define the intended audience upfront, (2) start with the problem, (3) clearly identify the relevant consumer sample, (4) select independent variables that are realistic, (5) employ dependent variables that have impact, and (6) make the findings easy to interpret.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MAKING CONSUMER RESEARCH MORE PRACTICALLY RELEVANT

Define the Intended Audience Upfront

Before conducting the research, the authors should clearly delineate who the intended audience for this research is to be. Is it a study that will inform consumers on key issues or consumption problems they are facing? Or can this research provide important insights that help consumers to live more fulfilling lives? Alternatively, is the topic of this research something that will provide useful information to marketing or retailing managers? Could specific meaningful and implementable suggestions for strategy be developed for this research? Or is the audience individuals or companies interested in corporate social responsibility or public policy issues? If so, can the research help to improve the effectiveness of CSR or public policy initiatives?

The key point is that defining the intended audience upfront provides the research with an important sense of direction which can provide guidance for the research process. This, in turn, will help to increase the practical relevance of the research.

Start with the Problem

The most typical way in which research on consumer behavior has been conducted over the years is to begin with a theoretical perspective or potentially interesting phenomenon and then conduct empirical research to test this theory or examine the phenomenon. Then, at the conclusion of writing the paper, there is an attempt (and sometimes struggle) to come up with implications for either managers, consumers, or public policy.

An alternative approach would be to start with a key problem facing one of these constituencies. These should be issues or topics that the targeted audience truly cares about. From a managerial perspective, there are a variety of ways to identify key issues facing managers, including attending industry conferences, inviting managers to classes, and reading key business and marketing industry publications. In doing so, consumer behavior researchers should evaluate these sources from the perspective of how consumer behavior research can inform or provide useful information on these problems.

A similar process can be applied to the other audiences as well. Researchers can conduct Google searches, regularly read consumer-related publications, or the Wall Street Journal and similar publications to identify key consumer problems that can benefit from input from consumer behavior research. Likewise, researchers can conduct searches to ascertain key areas or initiatives which could be potential avenues for corporate responsibility efforts. Further, important public policy issues could be identified by attending public policy conferences or conducting internet searches.

The key point here is that researchers need to start with the problem and then apply consumer behavior theory and research to inform these issues rather than vice versa. By doing so, the probability that the research is relevant and meaningful increases greatly.

Clearly Identify the Relevant Consumer Sample

For many years, consumer (and psychology) research was mockingly referred to as the “study of college sophomores.” This was because academic researchers were often short of funds to conduct their research and college students represented a readily available, convenient, and cost-effective pool of research subjects. Despite these advantages, the use of these subjects has been heavily criticized over the years.

The purpose of the present treatise is not to revisit this extensive debate; rather to state that to increase practical relevance, researchers need to employ samples of “actual” consumers to whom researchers wish to generalize findings. This first involves providing a clear definition of the relevant population and then developing a sampling plan to collect data from these consumers. Fortunately, in today’s world, there are a number of research services which enable data to be collected on “real” consumers such as MTurk, Prolific, and Clickstream. While there have been critical debates about problems associated with these samples which would not be discussed here, the key point is that these services allow researchers to acquire more real-world samples and data in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

This is not to say that college students should never be employed as subjects. The general consensus is that these subjects are a relatively homogenous group, and they can be very useful in establishing cause–effect relationships (i.e., internal validity) which can then be tested on more realistic samples. Moreover, since many products’ target customers are people at college age (e.g., 18–22), college students can represent some types of real-world consumers.

Select Independent Variables That Are Realistic

As mentioned previously, many studies examining consumer behavior operationalize their independent variable using stylized, artificial scenarios that do not involve actual behavior. When this is the case, the relevant audience may fail to see how the research will change consumers’ behavior and the findings are not informative of the key issues at hand. Consequently, research becomes practically relevant when the operationalization of the independent variable is grounded in realism to closely match an actual consumption experience. Essentially, this involves translating the independent variable into a set of actions that allows the audience to influence consumer behavior in the real world.

As mentioned earlier, one of the most effective ways to implement this suggestion is to conduct field experiments. By conducting the research in real-world contexts, actual consumer responses to real stimuli can be observed in a realistic setting. In particular, actual behavior can be observed and this helps increase the audience’s understanding of how the findings can meaningfully impact their target consumers.

Admittedly, there are critical issues concerning field experiments. They can be expensive and difficult to implement. Further, strong internal validity is more difficult to achieve than in lab experiments. In other words, internal validity is sacrificed for external validity. However, in recent years, there has been an increasing trend toward conducting lab studies first to establish internal validity and then conducting a field experiment which is more externally valid.

In addition, advances in technology and software now enable the development of independent variable stimuli which are impressively realistic. Realistic advertisements, packages, and any other type of marketing communication can be easily and cheaply produced to present to consumers. Visual simulations can also be produced which closely resemble real-world contexts. Further, these stimuli can be manipulated and changed very quickly and effectively when using online surveys.

Select Dependent Variables That Have Impact

In many consumer behavior studies, researchers rely on self-report measures such as attitudes, behavioral intentions, or reported choice as dependent variables. This has occurred because they are rather easy to measure and they have demonstrated moderate predictability or explanation of consumers’ behavior. However, it is common knowledge among consumer researchers that “people don’t always do what they say they do” for a variety of reasons. They might not want to reveal to the researcher what they really do or perhaps they are not really sure.

To be practically relevant, it is important to employ dependent variables that have real consequences. In other words, the dependent variables should be directly related to real-world outcomes. These types of dependent variables are more representative of behavior in the actual consumer decision-making situations. For example, rather than asking consumers what they would choose, a more practically relevant dependent variable would be to measure actual choice with real costs involved. This could be done in a field study by observing actual choice behavior or in a lab study where there are actual consequences for making a choice. A key point is that the closer the dependent variable is to actual behavior in the decision funnel, the stronger the practical relevance.

Another possibility is to employ unobtrusive measures which are based on data that are collected without the participation or knowledge of the people or groups that generated the data. These can involve simple observation, archival data, content analysis, or physical traces. A key advantage of these measures is that they involve observations of human behavior in their natural context without any interference from researchers and are therefore indicative of real-world outcomes.

Make the Findings Easy to Interpret

The final recommendation involves the communication of the findings. The key principle is that in order to have practical relevance, the research needs to be reported in a manner that is easy for the target audience to understand. This involves using less technical language and concrete examples. In a sense, this reflects a well-known marketing principle to “speak the customer’s language.” Fortunately, JCR and other marketing journals have recognized this and have authors develop simple summaries of their research that can be directed toward journalists and the relevant audiences. In the case of JCR , this is called “The Pitch.”

We believe that, despite the continuing call to increase relevance in consumer research, JCR stakeholders still lack a clear understanding of what “relevance” actually means. As such, in the present article, we propose a framework that defines five dimensions of practical relevance in consumer research: targeted, topical, actionable, consequential, and interpretable. We illustrate the framework with recently published JCR articles. Importantly, this framework takes a holistic view that practical relevance is shaped at each facet of the research process, ranging from formulating the research questions, to designing and conducting the research studies, and to communicating the research to the audience. We then reviewed all articles published in JCR during 2015 and 2022 and identified 11 representative articles to illustrate how consumer research can achieve practical relevance by focusing on the five dimensions at different facets of the research process. Based on this holistic perspective, we develop six recommendations for enhancing practical relevance of consumer research.

Consumer researchers may find that the utmost challenge in enhancing practical relevance is attaining the dimensions of “targeted” and “topical.” Without identifying the research questions that the targeted audiences truly care about currently, the research findings cannot be important enough to be “actionable” or “consequential” to them. We do see that many papers published at JCR introduce the research question in a consumer, managerial, or policy-relevant way. However, a critical question to ask is how many of these publications have become the basis for action for real-world consumers, marketers, and policy-makers. Being “targeted” and “topical” is more than framing the research question in a practically relevant way. It requires the researchers to understand the prominent issues in the real-world consumption, marketing, and policy practice. As illustrated in the recommendation of “Start with the Problem,” interacting with the consumption and business world, in one way or the other, is the key to learn what truly matters to the audiences.

We would also like to particularly emphasize three aspects of our framework. First , practical relevance of consumer research does not mean managerial relevance only. JCR has a broad audience that encompasses consumers, practitioners, and policy-makers. Thus, practical relevance of consumer research is relevance to consumer welfare, managerial practice, or general public’s welfare. Second , we believe that enhancing practical relevance by focusing on the five dimensions does not compromise the academic rigor of the research. Studies with actionable and consequential design still need to ensure the methodological rigor. Third , the framework of practical relevance we have proposed applies to all types of JCR papers, including conceptual papers, theory-driven empirical papers, substantive phenomena papers, consumer culture research papers, and (multi-)methods and empirical quant papers. To illustrate how practical relevance is shaped by each facet of the research process, we have reviewed mostly empirical papers and only one conceptual paper. However, we believe that any types of consumer research could enhance the practical relevance by focusing on the five dimensions when these dimensions fit into the entire research process. Taking all this together, consumer behavior researchers are encouraged to move forward and “make it meaningful” ( Dahl et al. 2014 ).

Wayne D. Hoyer ( [email protected] ) is the James L. Bayless/William S. Farrish Fund Chair for Free Enterprise at the McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.

Echo Wen Wan ( [email protected] ) is a professor of marketing at the Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.

Keith Wilcox ( [email protected] ) is the Macy’s Foundation Professor at the Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.

All authors contributed equally and are listed in alphabetical order. They would like to thank Bernd Schmitt and Marco Bertini for their helpful comments and assistance.

This research curation was invited by editors Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen, and Stacy Wood.

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U.S. Intelligence Believes Putin Probably Didn't Order Navalny to Be Killed - WSJ

U.S. Intelligence Believes Putin Probably Didn't Order Navalny to Be Killed - WSJ

FILE PHOTO: People lay flowers at the grave of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny following his funeral at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow, Russia, March 1, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) -U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably didn't order opposition politician Alexei Navalny killed at an Arctic prison camp in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Navalny, 47 when he died, was Putin's fiercest domestic critic. His allies, branded extremists by the authorities, accused Putin of having him murdered and have said they will provide proof to back their allegation.

The Kremlin has denied any state involvement. Last month, Putin called Navalny's demise "sad" and said he had been ready to hand the jailed politician over to the West in a prisoner exchange provided Navalny never return to Russia. Navalny's allies said such talks had been under way.

The Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, said on Saturday that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Putin probably didn't order Navalny to be killed in February.

It said Washington had not absolved the Russian leader of overall responsibility for Navalny's death however, given the opposition politician had been targeted by Russian authorities for years, jailed on charges the West said were politically motivated, and had been poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent.

The Kremlin denies state involvement in the 2020 poisoning.

Photos You Should See - April 2024

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday he had seen the Journal's report, which he said contained "empty speculation".

"I've seen the material, I wouldn't say it's high quality material that deserves attention," Peskov told reporters when asked about the matter.

Reuters could not independently verify the Journal report, which cited sources as saying the finding had been "broadly accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit."

The U.S. assessment was based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence, and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of Navalny's death and how it overshadowed Putin’s re-election in March, the paper cited some of its sources as saying.

It cited Leonid Volkov, a senior Navalny aide, as calling the U.S. findings naive and ridiculous.

(Reporting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Frances Kerry)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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