مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

The inductive-realist view of scientific progress requires the development and testing of theories that explain and predict relevant phenomena. Therefore, for marketing to progress scientifically, scholars must develop and test theories that explain and predict phenomena associated with the discipline’s core subject matter e exchange (Bagozzi, 1975; Hunt, 1991). Yadav (2010) argues that an important component of theory development is the broad and creative thinking that often characterizes the purely conceptual articles that appear periodically in marketing’s major journals. He notes, however, that the number of such articles has declined significantly over the past 30 years. Yadav attributes the decline to several factors, including emphases in doctoral education, priorities in promotion and tenure evaluation, and editorial preferences at marketing journals. Together, these and other factors may direct effort away from the purely theoretical and toward the empirical. The net result of these factors could be a stifling of theoretical creativity, a focus on small ideas, and a continued reliance on disciplines such as economics and psychology as primary sources of new theoretical insights into marketing. Indeed, the discipline may already be suffering the effects of these harmful trends.

If Yadav’s (2010) conclusions about the decline of theoretical development in marketing are correct, they may suggest to some that the state of empirical scholarship in marketing is sound, if only overemphasized. It stands to reason that for a given amount of space in marketing’s major journals a decline in the number of conceptual articles implies a corresponding rise in the number of empirical articles. As these journals “continue to thrive” (Yadav, 2010, p. 17), it could be that the emphasis on empirical research serves the discipline well. However, Yadav’s (p. 17) conclusions are reached as part of an important admonition about restoring “the balance between different forms of research.” In this paper, we argue that this required balance extends beyond finding an appropriate proportion of empirical versus conceptual articles. It also includes achieving balance within the realm of empirical research and, in particular, the empirical testing of theories.

According to Yadav (2010), the vast majority of articles published in marketing journals contain both conceptual and empirical content, suggesting that empirical theory-testing articles do much of the “heavy lifting” of science in marketing. Amidst the periodic calls for greater theoretical and conceptual work cited by Yadav (i.e., Wind, 1979; Staelin, 2005; Webster, 2005), it is surprising how infrequently calls to take stock of long-term trends in theorytesting research occur, especially given its critical role in the science of marketing. Of particular importance to scientific advancement would be questions about the number of theories proposed and tested in articles published by marketing’s major journals, the amount of testing any single theory receives, and the disciplinary origins of these theories. The purpose of this paper is to conduct such an assessment.