You may have heard that EMAC has initiated special interest groups (SIGs) to create subgroups within the EMAC community that are interested in substantive research areas. In line with this initiative, we have started the SIG “Innovation and Stakeholders”.

The SIG “Innovation and Stakeholders” aims to provide a platform for EMAC members that study why, how and to what effect stakeholders (customers and/or other actors such as suppliers, governments and NGOs) play a role in the development, commercialization and diffusion of new products and services. Such studies could either focus on only customers’ role in innovation or take a stakeholder marketing perspective and investigate how multiple stakeholder groups jointly affect innovation.

To introduce this new SIG to the EMAC community we organize an inaugural session at EMAC 2017 in Groningen, Netherlands. We have invited two renowned speakers (Eileen Fischer from York University, Canada and Jaideep Prabhu from University of Cambridge, UK) that will provide concrete examples of research that fits the domain of the SIG. The session will conclude with a discussion with the two invited speakers and the audience about the future of this research domain and how the SIG could be supportive in furthering this domain. We highly value your contribution to this discussion and welcome your ideas for future activities of the SIG. After the discussion, there will be drinks and room to socialize and engage in further community-building.

The session is scheduled for Wednesday May 24 at 4 PM (please check the program of the EMAC conference at http://www.rug.nl/emac2017/ for further details). Please feel free to forward this invitation to other marketing scholars that might be interested.

We hope you will join us!

Kind regards,

Paul H. Driessen
Bas Hillebrand
Annouk Lievens

---