How to Be a Pro–Social Impact Scholar in Marketing

Use a two-way lens to uncover BW opportunities. To make this focus work, we can start with a marketplace exchange or a marketing activity to identify BW challenges. For example, Habel, Alavi, and Linsenmayer (2021) uncover the toxic health effects of variable compensation schemes used in sales force management. Another approach is to start with a problem in the world and ask how marketing or marketplace exchanges are contributing to the problem or could be a solution. In another personal selling example, Steenkamp et al. (2024) study how female employment in certain sales roles can help women build resilience—defined as the ability to cope psychologically and economically with adversity—thereby promoting gender equity in societies.

Think portfolio. BW research can be risky for all the reasons outlined in Ozanne et al. (2024). Therefore, it is wise to develop a portfolio of research that includes non-BW research. This strategy offers better balance in timelines and resource requirements—all of which can be stretched in BW research. This is also a sanity measure given that BW research can involve less control and a bigger scope.

Design research focused on actionable levers. This is a suggestion we recommended to authors when I was the editor in chief of the Journal of Marketing. In Van Heerde et al. (2021), we ask authors to focus on controllable independent and moderator variables. We cite the example of Peck et al. (2021), which examines the conditions under which consumers take better care of the public goods they consume (e.g., picking up trash on a trail). Their interventions are designed to increase psychological ownership of the public good, and all are feasible actions that policy makers or managers could take. When we select actionable variables, we increase the odds that market actors will understand and implement our findings.

Walk the streets. My husband and I found that one way we could cope during the COVID-19 lockdowns was to walk the streets in ever widening circles and directions in our neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina. You can learn a lot about a place from just looking. I think BW research can come about like this. We tend to look to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which are helpful. But we should not neglect what is happening in our families, neighborhoods, cities, and states. Novel problems and novel relationships abound if we get out of our offices and onto the “streets” to see them.

Build ideas/theories from the ground up. Related, BW work may often start with difficult-to-explain data or inspiring examples (Golder et al. 2023). I join a widening chorus of scholars arguing that it is important to view novel explanations for real-world problems as a form of theory development. As Lynch (2011, p. 16) notes, “One can make important theoretical contributions either by starting with concepts and then linking to substantive phenomena or by starting with substantive phenomena then searching for concepts to explain the phenomena.” For example, when Fernandes, Lynch, and Netemeyer (2014) found that financial literacy was primarily a problem of memory decay, and that the solution was just-in-time financial education, a very novel and manageable approach emerged to solve a big societal problem that had been ignored by policy makers. Madan et al. (2023) cite the editorial tendency to view papers linking existing theory to new problems as suffering from the “it's just” problem, meaning “it's just a solution, but there is no theoretical contribution.” An alternative view follows MacInnis et al. (2020) by noting that when an existing theoretical construct illuminates a novel solution/explanation to a real-world problem, this should be viewed as a contribution and be published in our best journals. Editorial teams need to be open to this contribution. If, however, the connection between the problem and theory has been previously noted, then “it's just” seems fair.

Go beyond evaluation. At the same time, BW research should be more than evaluation research—meaning we examine the effectiveness of a strategy or program. We want to be thinking about the programs and strategies and questioning everything about the effort to contribute to its success. This is how we can identify contributions. In my research on the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, I was skeptical of what the economists in policy roles were saying would happen when nutrition disclosures were required. I found that firms were much more strategic in their response and that markets did not transform in the expected way—to the detriment of both consumers and small competitors.

Disseminate your work. Journals have a responsibility to take actions to disseminate the research they publish. However, authors have a responsibility, too. You can identify the major nonacademic thought leaders in nonprofits, policy bodies, and companies who would benefit from reading your research. Once the review process is finished, build a campaign to reach these people. This effort should also include academic thought leaders across disciplines. Also, the authors you cite would likely benefit from reading your article. These authors, in turn, may share it with others and/or use it in their classes.

Leverage alternative metrics. Classic impact factor scores alone may not be the best measures of BW impact. They do show that knowledge is diffusing, but only within the ivory tower. Scholars and journals should also use Altmetric scores, which, as Altmetric (2023) claims, “move beyond traditional citations and see the bigger picture.” This includes capturing whether a piece of research is used in the news, patent citations, social media, syllabi, blogs, and public policy. Many journals are now publishing this metric for articles. Authors can click through and see the exact outlets, institutions, and policy bodies engaging with their work. For societally impactful research, tracking Altmetric scores is an important step. However, do not forget your responsibility to activate this impact (see number 8).

Be brave. I am struck by the very high level of “must dos” and “don’t dos” shared with PhD students these days. If you don’t do X, or do X, there will be negative consequences! My honest reaction to this is fear—not the motivating type, but the type that saps the love of learning and creating knowledge. I was fortunate to be nurtured in a PhD program that had none of this. The work was hard, but there was a big dose of joy and discovery that buoyed us. I always wanted to work on big messy societal problems, and my advisors and faculty cheerleaders tried to clear a path for me by creating courses, supporting my efforts, and never telling me I had to do anything else. I know not everyone is so lucky. If that is you, be brave and know there are many pathways to good work—and that you will find one.

Find your people. Work to build connections with two different types of people. First, the people whose papers you lean into as you travel your path. Second,the people who believe in you and who will help promote your direction even if they are not working on your topics. We need both types of people in our lives—they make being brave easier.