Guest Editorial: Is Marketing Academia Losing Its Way?

Abstract

There is an alarming and growing gap between the interests, standards, and priorities of academic marketers and the needs of marketing executives operating in an ambiguous, uncertain, fast-changing, and complex marketspace. This has gone beyond the familiar dilemma of academic research pitted against practical relevance. Our contention is that this widening divergence has become detrimental to the long-term health of the field. We share our concerns and offer proposals for better aligning the interests of marketing academics and practitioners to their mutual benefit. We are guided by the belief that the role of academic marketing is not just to advance theory and methods but also to have an impact on the practice of marketing.