Special Issue Editors: Pradeep Chintagunta, John Lynch, Martin Mende, Maura Scott, Rebecca Slotegraaf, and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp
Increasing the ecological value of marketing research by examining the interactions among and between business actors, institutions, and systems can help make scholarly marketing research more meaningful and impactful (Van Heerde et al. 2021). Incorporating and integrating multiple stakeholder perspectives and addressing the corresponding trade-offs can strengthen the rigor and relevance of an inquiry, with the potential to enrich outcomes for all stakeholders (e.g., Berry et al. 2024).
Managers, academics, and policy makers must address social and business challenges against the backdrop of stakeholders’ divergent priorities and perspectives on important issues. Indeed, many of the world’s most pressing topics affect and are affected by multiple stakeholders in areas such as (but not limited to) the infodemics crisis, the need to deliver quality health care and financial services for all, the sustainability of the planet, the ability to effectively leverage technology, unintended consequences of marketing activities, global differences in social/political priorities, and marketing’s role in advancing human rights. Organizations and managers must navigate the needs of multiple stakeholders, including consumers, communities, customers, employees, executives, investors, and society. A stakeholder view, in which the organization focuses on the well-being of a variety of stakeholders in the value chain, can align with an organization’s other longer-term goals, such as profitability (Berry et al. 2024).
We recognize that many real-world problems combine a marketing issue for one stakeholder with financial, human resource, social, cultural, or even moral issues for another stakeholder. This contributes to the richness and ecological validity of research involving multiple stakeholders. As such, we welcome research that takes a multidisciplinary perspective as long as the marketing lens plays a key role in theorizing and analysis.
The special issue is not limited to a particular context, but for illustrative purposes, consider health care as an example. Consumers need affordable, high-quality health care, and communities need equitable health outcomes. A government may prioritize accessible health care for its citizens, while health care providers seek to run a profitable business with a respectable reputation. Insurers need to transparently provide coverage while containing costs. Health care employees require a reasonable workload and fair compensation. Yet, trade-offs exist that limit favorable outcomes for all stakeholders in a health care ecosystem. Given any complex ecosystem, how can marketing explore the needs, decisions, and processes of multiple stakeholders to shed light on the tensions and necessary trade-offs for all stakeholders? What trade-offs are acceptable, and what are the potential impacts of such trade-offs (e.g., positive and negative financial implications, measurable advancements toward societal goals)?
The editorial mission of the Journal of Marketing is to develop and disseminate “knowledge about real-world marketing questions useful to scholars, educators, managers, policy makers, consumers, and other societal stakeholders around the world.” Our empirical research to date has been effective in reflecting typically one or two sets of conventional stakeholder perspectives (e.g., purely consumer- or firm-focused, salesperson–customer dyad-focused).
We introduce a special issue of the Journal of Marketing focused on understanding the challenges and opportunities related to tensions and divergent priorities among multiple stakeholders, including new and relevant stakeholders.
This special issue encourages empirical research and analytical modeling that takes a 360-degree view to include new and relevant stakeholders in the research process, especially work that builds on existing stakeholders while broadening existing lenses via new stakeholder connections. We seek papers that uncover insights into how to deliver economic returns for firms while also delivering broader beneficial contributions on topics such as individual growth and well-being, societal cohesion, firm investment in organizational values, democratic success, and social challenges.
Many business questions involve various stakeholders who may have competing interests. For instance, MacInnis et al. (2020) identify key marketplace stakeholders that influence consumers and customers as including society, media, government and nongovernment organizations, and businesses, among others. As another example, the United Nations recognizes “major groups” of stakeholders as including women, children, and youth; indigenous peoples and their communities; nongovernmental organizations; local authorities; farmers; workers and trade unions; business and industry; and the scientific and technological community (United Nations, n.d.). In marketing, an integrated stakeholder perspective might consider not only consumers, frontline service employees, and retailers or other businesses but also communities where a product is produced (yet not consumed), measurable impacts on the environment or society, internal impacts on employees, behaviors of policy makers or governmental agents (e.g., Wang et al. 2021), top management teams, shareholders and investors, or the media (at the local, regional, and/or [inter-/supra-] national levels).
Key Criteria for Publication in the Special Issue
The special issue is interested in new marketing knowledge that helps address substantial and important societal and business issues, generated through the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (three or more). Multidisciplinary research is welcome though not required. Empirical research and analytical modeling are welcomed and encouraged.
Key criteria that will be used to assess a submission include:
- Scope of the research question. We encourage research that seeks to tackle large-scale societal-business challenges rather than narrow or incremental topics.
- Novelty of the insights.
- The extent to which the novel insights are derived from at least three key stakeholders. New, relevant stakeholder perspectives are encouraged.
- The magnitude of the behavioral change and/or its impact stemming from the work, such as the number of people likely to change their behavior based on the research (in the short or long term) or the number of people who may benefit from the findings if implemented. These can include managers, policy makers, nonprofits, consumers, and communities, etc.
- The broad potential impact of the work.
Submission deadline: May 1, 2026
Special Sessions
Everyone interested in learning more about this special issue is warmly invited to attend the following special sessions:
- An online zoom session in October 2025 (details to follow).
- A special session at the 2026 AMA Winter Academic Conference in Madrid.
All manuscripts will be reviewed as a cohort for this special issue of the Journal of Marketing. All submissions will go through Journal of Marketing’s double-anonymized review and follow standard norms and processes. Submissions must be made via the journal’s ScholarOne site, with author guidelines available here. For any queries, feel free to reach out to the special issue editors.
References
Berry, Leonard L., Tracey S. Danaher, Timothy Keiningham, Lerzan Aksoy, and Tor W. Andreassen (2024), “Social Profit Orientation: Lessons from Organizations Committed to Building a Better World,” Journal of Marketing, 89 (2), 1–19.
MacInnis, Deborah J., Vicki G. Morwitz, Simona Botti, Donna L. Hoffman, Robert V. Kozinets, Don R. Lehmann, John Lynch, Cornelia Pechmann (2020), “Creating Boundary-Breaking, Marketing-Relevant Consumer Research,” Journal of Marketing, 84 (2), 1–23.
United Nations (n.d.), “Major Groups and Other Stakeholders,” https://www.unep.org/civil-society-engagement/major-groups-modalities/major-group-categories.
Van Heerde, Harald J., Christine Moorman, C. Page Moreau, and Robert W. Palmatier, (2021), “Reality Check: Infusing Ecological Value into Academic Marketing Research,” Journal of Marketing, 85 (2), 1–13.
Wang, Yanwen, Michael Lewis, and Vishal Singh (2021), “Investigating the Effects of Excise Taxes, Public Usage Restrictions, and Antismoking Ads across cigarette brands.” Journal of Marketing 85 (3), 150–67.
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