It would be wrong to treat marketing as an isolated field or discipline. It is connected with disciplines of management and economics, the social sciences, mathematics and statistics, and more. In the past twenty years we have seen its growing interaction with digital technology and neuroscience. Marketing has evolved through learning from other disciplines, borrowing concepts and theories, adapting and fitting them in the context of marketing. But there has always been concern about how deeply, rather than superficially, concepts or models from other fields are being adapted to marketing. This is true also for other sub- or adjoining fields of marketing, such as consumer behaviour, advertising and marketing research. It is a challenge related to the question of how knowledge is being created and developed.
Researchers Terry Grapentine and David Soorholtz address issues related to the development of knowledge in marketing and its plausible applications in their article in Quirk’s Marketing Research Review: “Know More to Do More” (November/December 2024 [1]). The article’s sub-title states: “How curiosity and a broad range of knowledge can lead to more effective marketing research“. As a starting point, Grapenitine and Soorholtz explain the distinction between multidisciplinary research and consilience. The latter term they use, ‘consilience’, is less familiar but seems similar in meaning and implication to interdisciplinary research — the distinction is clarified next.
In multidisciplinary research, specialists from different disciplines bring their knowledge and perspectives from their domains for working together on a shared research project or problem. However, each researcher contributes his or her viewpoint to allow tackling the subject from different angles, offering possibly alternative solutions, but generally keeping them separate. On the other hand, consilience “is the endeavor to unify different knowledge domains at a conceptual level” [1]. The emphasis in consilience (interdisciplinary research) is on integrating the knowledge from different disciplines or sources for increasing our understanding of a phenomenon or concept. It further means that converging diverge areas of inquiry can provide new complementary insights to develop a more comprehensive and cohesive understanding of the concept. This process can actually lead to a whole new concept or model, and even a broader theory, that combines and integrates the contributions from different knowledge domains in an interactive and original way.
- Nobel laureate Robert Shiller describes consilience as “the unity of knowledge among the differing academic disciplines“, crossing especially between the sciences and humanities, in the second chapter of his book “Narrative Economics” (2019). He explains how economics, the pivotal discipline of interest, connects and unites with other disciplines through narratives.
- The distinction between multidisciplinary research and consilience may be explained through analogy — think of the difference between a mix and a compound in chemistry, respectively: When creating a mix, the ingredients remain independent and retain their original properties, yet in a chemical compound, the ingredients interact with each other to generate a new substance with new properties that were not exhibited in the original ingredients.
Critical Note: In reality, the boundaries between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research can be quite blurred, and they often get confused. Researchers may start with a multidisciplinary research and find themselves extending it to create a new integrative solution, but researchers may also aim at consilience yet remain at the multidisciplinary level of addressing the research topic. In a sense, consilience is a higher-grade, more advanced form of research involving multiple disciplines.
Questions have been raised with regard to developing theoretical concepts in marketing as well as consumer behaviour on how firmly they fit into the context of the principal or designated field when importing concepts or models from other disciplines (e.g., economics, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience). For having concepts “feel” native in marketing, knowledge adopted from other disciplines needs to be ‘re-processed’ and integrated with respect to the issues or problems faced in marketing. A different direction called for has been to develop concepts originally within marketing, based on the large body of knowledge already accumulated in the field over (at least) the past seventy years. Nevertheless, benefitting from theoretical concepts, models and methodologies from other knowledge domains should not be turned away, allowing that these contributions are combined and integrated in interaction with the issue at stake in the marketing context.
In a research process that involves learning, as in the forms described above, background (prior) knowledge plays an essential role. Grapentine and Soorholtz refer to an article by Paul van den Broek in Science magazine [2] on cognitive processes and knowledge representation (while learning from science texts). Their interest is focused in particular on van den Broek’s explanation of learning processes and knowledge construction, depicted also in an illustrative figure. That figure shows connections between established information nodes, and emerging connections and nodes that signify knowledge update or modification and correction of misconceptions in existing knowledge. Grapentine and Soorholtz suggest applying this type of ‘knowledge map’ to research that involves learning materials “across a diverse collection of related knowledge domains”, thus enabling researchers to expand their knowledge (e.g., vocabulary, factual, but adding to that also relations between elements as emphasised by van den Broek).
- In the map figure of knowledge structure, constructed and modified through learning (origin in Science, reprinted in the Quirk’s article), one can see: (1) black nodes of correct prior knowledge, (2) blue nodes of new knowledge acquired, and (3) red nodes of misconceptions corrected. Black segments indicate established knowledge connections while blue and red segments imply feeding modified or corrected information between nodes (e.g., blue node 24 ‘updates’ black nodes 2 and 16, corrected red node 5 ‘applies’ to node 4, black node 2 is also fed from corrected node 17).
- Van den Broek explains that prior knowledge functions through a dual process: (a) first it functions in a role of background knowledge that by reference to it (i.e., in long term memory) can enhance comprehension of new information (i.e., read in text) and achieve a more coherent mental representation of the meaning of the new information; (b} subsequently, new information can be utilised to expand the prior background knowledge in the domain, update or modify it, as well as correct misconceptions that have been exhibited in the existing knowledge.
- Additional relevant issues or aspects are addressed by van den Broek, such as the important difference between coherent and correct representations; also, the beneficial contribution versus distracting disturbance to understanding new information that may arise from inclusion of visual figures, diagrams or movies, other nontextual materials (e.g., hands-on experience), and narrative text (e.g., anecdotes), contingent on their relevance, simplicity (e.g., avoiding information overload), and purpose (i.e., not to make the text just more ‘interesting’ or visually attractive).
- A recurring question in marketing and consumer research concerns whether updating or correcting information overrides or appends to prior information in existing knowledge structures. Van den Broek likewise mentions an unresolved issue regarding when and how new information would override misconceptions held in a learner’s prior knowledge. Research on learning brand knowledge, for instance, suggests that the modifying or correcting information would not override the prior brand association but add an attachment to it (as in a ‘correcting note’).
Grapentine and Soorholtz encourage more critical and creative thinking in marketing and marketing research. They offer some pathways and provide examples for implementing such modes of thinking in contexts associated with marketing. They propose several fields as candidate non-marketing domains that can inform marketing research (with examples of multidisciplinary research):
| Anthropology (e.g., culture, linguistics, ethnographic methods) | Marketing History (case studies of successes and failures, e.g., companies, brands) |
| Behavioural Economics (e.g., cognitive, emotional, cultural and social influences on decision making) | Neuroscience (applied to marketing activities and consumer behaviour –> neuromarketing) |
| Communication Science (e.g., promotional tools, channels, messages and media) | Philosophy of Science (epistemology, explains how science creates knowledge) |
| Demography (in relation to consumer behaviour) | Psychometrics (measurement instruments, defining concepts and their validity & reliability) |
- We may add to these domains: Technology — the development, adoption and application of advanced technologies by companies, including digital interfaces (e.g., in products, internet, mobile), and moreover AI-enabled tools, and particularly studying how consumers respond to, adopt and utilise them, from marketing and advertising to product use.
Grapentine and Soorholtz suggest how one may implement three ways for manifesting processes of creative thinking — blending, breaking and bending — in marketing research (the conception of the three Bs was proposed by Anthony Brandt, a music professor, and David Eagleman, a neuroscientist). Briefly explicated here: (1) Blending, meaning the integration of different ideas or elements to develop something new and innovative, may be implemented in using different techniques for measuring consumer preferences for product attributes; (2) Breaking something whole into parts and then assembling something new (and better) out of the fragments, can be applied in asking consumers to “take apart” several models of a product (e.g., four lawnmowers) and then instructing them to devise and assemble a new version of the product from the “best parts” of the former models; (3) Bending, which suggests the consideration of ways for stretching or shrinking a concept, can be applied, according to Grapentine and Soorholtz, with respect to a brand in retail context, that is, the placement of the branded product (e.g., alcoholic drink) on a store’s shelf next to various brands of other products may influence the perception of the focal brand, stretching or shrinking its image (e.g., endowing more positive associations, insinuating narrower or broader drinking occasions).
- The authors provide an explanation given by Eagleman from the field of neuroscience, as to how memories are collated and applied to generate creative solutions, in support for the creative thinking behind their examples.
Two examples are offered by Grapentine and Soorholtz of consilience in marketing research. They incorporate the following joining fields and key principles:
- Neuroscience + Marketing: The research is about the gap between pre-purchase expectations and post-purchase product performance. From marketing, we are familiar with the concept wherein the difference between expectation (E) and performance (P) determines the level of satisfaction (S). For example, if a consumer expects a home appliance to work well, problem-free for 3 years and sees that it continues to function impeccably after 5 years, then P-E = 5-3 = +2, a positive difference occurs that increases his or her satisfaction (conversely, decrease S if the difference were negative). From neuroscience, it is learned that the response to positive or negative outcomes is mediated through the reward system in the brain, triggering neurotransmitters that cause pleasing or non-pleasing feelings. In consilience, it is suggested that a survey-based measurement approach is devised of satisfaction that treats it as a mental state; guide respondents how to interpret “expectation” (as forecast of performance); and express ‘satisfaction’ as the excitement or thrill of surprise (and inversely the down feeling or angst of disappointment).
- Philosophy of Science + Psychometrics + Marketing: In the 1960s much emphasis was invested in the development of measurements of constructs in marketing in following of principles of psychometrics. In retrospect, the effort to encourage marketing (or consumer) researchers to follow those rigorous rules did not succeed sufficiently. Grapentine and Soorholtz recommend a return to the teachings of philosophy of science, specifically how science creates knowledge, and to principles of psychometrics for developing more robust, reliable and valid measures (e.g., of brand image, emotions, customer satisfaction and loyalty). Consilience would suggest the application of confirmatory factor analysis (a.k.a. structural equation modelling, SEM) for constructing a multi-facet, multi-item measurement instrument of the focal construct.
Grapentine and Soorholtz encourage marketing researchers to expand and enrich their background knowledge in areas they identify as pertinent domains of study, to purchase relevant college textbooks for reference in their chosen fields, and to use Google Scholar to explore and expose oneself to new knowledge domains. First, they propose the candidate fields listed in the table above. Second, they provide references to recommended books (e.g., on behavioural research, anthropology, and critical thinking, made relevant for business and marketing). Third, searching concepts in Google Scholar can provide marketing researchers guidance and direction, whereby one can often find free PDF copies of referenced academic articles (resources suggested here include Academia.edu, ResearchGate.net, SSRN Research Network for Academic Papers — see marketing ejournals, and also note that more open-access journals are available online these days).
Grapentine and Soorholtz share their lesson in marketing research that “the more you know about things, the better” — greater background knowledge, from more specific and closer fields (e.g., social sciences, advanced research methods) to broader, general knowledge in many related disciplines, would be advantageous. This recommendation is willingly endorsed. The authors have done well in increasing the appetite for types of thinking and learning they advocate in marketing research while giving helpful practical guidelines and examples. Therefore, it is only left here to join in their call.
Notes:
[1] Know More to Do More: How curiosity and a broad range of knowledge can lead to more effective marketing research; Terry Grapentine and David Soorholtz; Quirk’s Marketing Research Review, November/December 2024 (in online magazine edition, pp. 32-37, on webpage, registration may be required).
[2] Using Texts in Science Education: Cognitive Processes and Knowledge Representation; Paul van den Broek. 2010; Science, 328, pp. 453-456 (availble for reading online via academia.edu)
Consumer / Shopper / Customer Behaviour 