Justice for all: A marketing perspective and research agenda

Abstract

Justice is a fundamental value in human life, which interfaces with multiple marketing issues. However, surprisingly, perception of justice has garnered scant attention hitherto in the marketing and consumer behavior literature. In contemporary society, with its advanced technologies and digital marketing media, new issues of justice have emerged that deserve close scientific scrutiny. The objective of this conceptual paper is to explore the domain of perception of (in)justice that might be related to marketing issues, to map the literature, conceptualize the domain, and point out new research avenues and opportunities in the field of marketing justice. To this end, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted, using automated textual analyses, focusing on work in the justice and allied disciplines published between January 2001 and April 2021. This procedure, coupled with a facet (meta)theoretical approach, revealed major elements for conceptualizing the sundry marketing aspects of justice. Indeed, the results show that marketing science and justice offer abundant opportunities for research on the interface between them. It is our hope, therefore, that the paper will stimulate a conversation in marketing scholarship on the hitherto largely overlooked role of justice perception in different marketing situations.