Call for Papers:

Conference and Special Issue of Marketing Science on Health

Conference: November 11-12, 2016
Olin School, Washington University in St. Louis

Conference Submission Deadline: September 15, 2016
Special Issue Submission Deadline: March 31, 2017

Global spending on health care exceeds $8 trillion per year and the US accounts for about 40% of that expenditure. Healthcare systems vary widely across countries and so do key metrics like the cost of care, health coverage, consumer satisfaction, health outcomes and overall public health. Countries the world over are struggling to provide more effective and affordable health care and trying to improve consumers’ own health-related behaviors. The problem is particularly challenging because expenditure and outcomes are determined in a complex ecosystem comprising consumers, physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical, medical device manufacturers, private insurance providers, and national single payers. Marketing science touches every aspect of this ecosystem and in the last decade alone, marketing researchers have examined topics ranging from consumer wellness and public health to pharmaceutical marketing to physician behavior and firm strategies in health care markets.

The goal of this conference and special issue is to encourage more research on topics related to consumer wellness, public health, and the business of healthcare; convene and curate a set of high-quality papers that showcase the multi-faceted relevance of marketing science to this important part of the global economy; and to increase the visibility and impact of this research not just for marketers and consumers but also for the healthcare industry and policy makers.

Theoretical and empirical papers are welcome. Empirical papers can be based on natural/field experiments, various types of econometric analyses, or “big data” approaches. Potential research topics include, but are not limited to:

1. Consumer Choice and Public Health

Purchase and consumption decisions of health impacting products (e.g., food and beverages, organics, tobacco, alcohol), health insurance and health care, the role of biases (e.g., time discounting, self-control and regulation), the effect of marketing actions (e.g., prices, promotions), regulation and policy (taxes and labeling requirements), differences in purchase and consumption behaviors across developing and developed countries.

2. Firm Behavior in Health Care and Health Insurance Markets

Marketing in the pharmaceutical, medical devices and hospital sector, insurance design, pricing, payments, physician behavior under different incentives and the impact of consumer biases, dynamics, asymmetric information etc. on firm strategy, role of marketing alliances, partnerships and outsourcing in drug/device development.

3. Innovations in Healthcare

The effect of product and service/operational innovations on physician, firm, and consumer behavior and on public health, its diffusion, the effects of WOM and social media on innovation diffusion.

4. Regulation and Policy

Healthcare standards (e.g., electronic health records), privacy issues in the age of big data, and impact of regulations (e.g., patents, “pay to delay generics”, single payer) on physician, firm, and consumer behavior, and on public health.

Important Dates

• Conference: November 11-12, 2016 at the Olin School, Washington University in St. Louis
• Conference Submission Deadline: September 15, 2016
• Special Issue Submission Deadline: March 31, 2017
• Tentative date for special issue: April 2018

Special Issue Editors and Conference Program Committee

Editor-in-Chief: K. Sudhir
Senior Editors: Kusum Ailawadi, Tat Chan, and Puneet Manchanda

Conference Submission Guidelines

Authors interested in presenting their paper at the conference should submit papers in pdf format and include the title of the paper, names, affiliations, mailing and email addresses of the authors, and an abstract of no more than 500 words. Please specify who will be the presenting author. Papers submitted for the conference should be sent to mktsci_health@yale.edu by the submission deadline. The Conference Program Committee will select papers for presentation at the conference.

Authors are strongly encouraged to submit their papers for the conference although papers will be considered for the special issue independent of submission or presentation at the conference.

Special Issue Submission Guidelines

Please submit your manuscript online via ScholarOne Manuscript Central at

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mksc .

When choosing Manuscript Type in Step 1 of the submission process, enter Special Issue – Health. All papers will go through the standard Marketing Science review process i.e., the EIC will assign each submission to one of three SEs or EIC, who will then manage the review process from that point.

For questions about the fit of a paper for the “health” special issue, authors can send a one-page abstract to one of the special issue editors. The editors will comment on the fit without making any judgment on the quality and the potential publication prospects, which will be judged entirely by the review process. Authors can submit papers for review to the “health” special issue at any time till the special issue deadline.

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