Journal of Marketing Channels

Call for Papers

Special Issue: “History of Marketing Channels Thought: Theory Formation and Identity Confirmation”

Guest Editor: Adel El-Ansary, University of North Florida

The Journal of Marketing Channels is pleased to announce and invite submissions for a Special Issue on the “History of Marketing Channels Thought: Theory Formation and Identity Confirmation.” The deadline for manuscript submission is December 31, 2016 with publication of accepted papers planned during late 2017 or early 2018.

Special Issue Background Information

The historical roots of marketing stretch back over 100 years to the early conceptualizations of distribution grounded in economics. These core distribution functions still need to be performed today by firms evolving continually to meet the needs of our present and future markets. The technologies themselves have changed from horse and wagon, to motor vehicles, to e-marketing with perhaps future autonomous aircraft “drone” delivery, as each technology has been replaced in turn with a more efficient, more “modern” technology to meet the needs of customers of the time. However, these new technologies must still be focused on the key marketing goal of facilitating exchange. This goal has not changed over the marketing century and is not likely to do so in the future.

Throughout this long history, marketing-related organizations and marketing functions (or flows) have been central to theory development. Perhaps one reason for this focus is that it is these organizations executing the marketing functions within marketing channels that service the needs of their customers domestically and internationally. The discipline appears to continue to believe that eliminating a function cripples the channel.

But the modern day marketing “identity crisis” recognized by some scholars does not appear to fully consider the historical development of the discipline. Debates about the nature and scope of marketing, disciplinary boundaries and theoretical bases, and the synergistic relationship between theory and practice seem to lack a foundation in institutional historical memory. Perhaps this is in part the result of a decline in the attention paid to the study of the historical development of the discipline, such as the early—but still important—work of Wroe Alderson and Robert Bartels who so greatly shaped mainstream modern marketing thought.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to consider the history of marketing channels as a lens to focus on where we have been, where we are, and where we might be headed both theoretically and managerially. In this age of e-commerce transforming social media (or perhaps vice-versa?), it would seem helpful to reflect on the past and consider the implications for how theory and practice may evolve: we are thinking of the past and present as prologue. We see, for instance, how the “old” tools of direct marketing are being applied in fresh new ways to online marketing.

Some examples of the research that would be welcomed include:

• Papers recognizing and extending the historical—but still highly pertinent—thinking of Wroe Alderson, who believed in the unity of science and so incorporated concepts from many disciplines to present his theory of marketing as an organized system of behavior, by considering relevant theory and practice from additional disciplines to help counter an inwardly focused “silo” effect that may hinder or confuse the development of marketing theory and practice.
• How the work of Louis P. “Pete” Bucklin in developing a channel structure theory rooted in economic theory might need to be extended or changed to match the modern marketing channels environment.
• What the historical development of channels theory tells us about the emergence of ancillary channels organizations, such as third-party logistics (“3PL”) providers.
• How the work of Louis W. “Lou” Stern on the theory of marketing channels based in economic and behavioral principles might need to be extended to consider the modern marketing channels environment.
• How might the historical development of functions or flows need to be refined to account for the fact that all of the flows save one—the physical product flow—can be accomplished with great efficiency in an online channel.
• How the concepts of channel effectiveness and efficiency, developed by Frederick D. Sturdivant from a social point of view, might be expanded or changed to better reflect the needs of a modern society.
• What the historical development of channels management might tell us about the indirect managerial relationships within modern channels involving managerially independent organizations that may not allow channel captains command and control over all units contributing to the channel’s success.
• How Fred E. Clark’s study of efficiency and effectiveness might inform us about, for example, customer relationships with online retailers and off-price stores (usually located outside the central business district) as they essentially shift some functions and costs to the customers themselves.
• What the foundational historical concepts might tell us about the role and functions of new technologies such as those applications (“apps”) associated with e-commerce, or new physical distribution applications involving radio frequency identification (“RFID”), or even the advent of “big data.”
• How the foundational writings of marketing history might provide insights into modern franchising in its many forms as contractual vertical marketing systems and how these writings might address certain current franchising issues.
• How the work of Robert Bartels and his concern that the term marketing— traditionally highly defined—had come to mean “all things to all people” may encourage us to more clearly delineate the increasingly fuzzy edges of the disciplines of marketing channels, supply chain management, business-to-business marketing, and other related disciplines with sharper definitions indicating how they are the same, related, and / or different.
• What marketing channels historically has to say about the challenges of marketing internationally or globally, especially about those challenges associated with different cultures, different lifestyles, different languages, different ways of doing business, and distances among channel organizations and customers on a global scale.

These examples are not intended to stifle the creativity of potential authors as papers concerning most channels issues related to the historical development of marketing channels are welcome. If in doubt about the suitability of a paper’s theme for this Special Issue, please contact the guest editor.

Submission Information

1. Submitted manuscripts should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.
2. All manuscripts will be double-blind refereed. Manuscripts must be submitted electronically in Word format and must be consistent with the author submission guidelines of the Journal of Marketing Channels that can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/WJMC. Click on the “Authors and Submissions” tab. Manuscripts should be in APA style and normally should be no longer than 30 pages in length.
3. Manuscripts should be received no later than December 31, 2016, with accepted papers published in late 2017 or early 2018. Please submit directly to the guest editor, preferably through e-mail as a Microsoft Word attached document.

Adel I. El-Ansary
Donna L. Harper Professor of Marketing
Department of Marketing & Logistics
Coggin College of Business
University of North Florida
1 UNF Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA
Phone: (904) 620-1373
E-mail: aelansar@unf.edu

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