INTEREST CATEGORY: RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
POSTING TYPE: Awards

Authors: Mona Sinha, Tom Gruen and Sarang Sunder

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RMSIG Small Research Grant Funding for 2021

The Relationship Marketing Special Interest Group (RMSIG) of the AMA is a group of AMA academics that seek new insights and promote understanding of the interdependency of actors in the management of customer and partner relationships.

The past year has greatly affected research funding and delayed research, and many institutions have been strapped for funds. To address this, the RMSIG is offering TWO competitive research grants of $1500 each to young scholars (current doctoral students and junior faculty who graduated after August 1, 2018) addressing issues in relationship marketing.

We are looking to support research that broadly addresses key strategic questions in relationship marketing, with no specific preference for methodological approach. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Valuation of customer relationships
• Issues related to privacy and control in a data rich CRM environment
• Customer, Vendor, and Platform relationships in the sharing economy
• Implications of emerging technology interfaces such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR)
• Relationship issues surrounding social responsibility and sustainability, and the joint sphere of responsibility among actors and stakeholders
• Network management and sharing responsibilities, roles, and remunerations across a network of actors
• Power and governance mechanisms in B2B relationships.
• Automated decision-making tools (such as AI/ML) in relationship marketing.

We encourage a wide range of research ideas and submissions from various methodological approaches.

Formatting Guidelines

All research grant proposals are to be submitted as a pdf document to the email address below. The pdf document should be structured as follows, maintaining the following word courts as suggestions, not hard and fast rules:

1) Cover page – include full contact information, institutional affiliation(s), and status in your doctoral program/institution

2) Statement of Research Problem (300 words of less)

3) Research Objectives and Results to Date (300 words of less)

4) Research Plan and Design – what do you plan to do; i.e., what data are you planning to collect and how, what are the planned analyses? (300 words or less)

5) Statement of how this research related to Relationship Marketing (150 words or less)

6) Explain why you need funding – what funding are you receiving and how much more do you need, i.e., how will this grant fill that “gap”? Were funds reduced at your institution or otherwise due to Covid-19? (150 words of less)

7) Budget Table – what you plan to spend the money on? The budget requested should be $1500 or less. If you are not currently an AMA member, the award will pay the $150 annual academic membership dues from the grant and deduct it from the total.

8) References

9) Include a current CV as a separate PDF document.

Please format your grant proposal according to the Journal of Marketing style guidelines, and include basics such as: Font: 12 point, Times New Roman, Text [Including references]: Double-spaced, left-justified. Page Layout: 1-inch margins on all sides with page numbers in the upper right corner and no header/footer.

Eligibility and Submitting your proposal:

Applicants for the RMSIG research grant must be current doctoral students or junior faculty (graduated after August 1, 2018), and this status will be verified prior to distributing the award.

Applicants do not have to be current AMA members, however, awardees who are not current members will have the $150 annual membership dues deducted and paid towards a one-year membership including membership in the RMSIG.

Please send your submission to amarmsig@gmail.com by Wednesday, June 9, 2021, 11:59pm ET.

All research grant proposals will be subject to a review process by the RMSIG Leadership team and will be evaluated based on fit with the SIG’s focus developing new insights into relationship marketing, as well as conceptual and methodological rigor, feasibility, need for funding, and the potential significance of the research.

Decisions will be made by Wednesday, June 23, 2021.