RESEARCH PRIORITIES FOR B2B MARKETING RESEARCHERS

Abstract

The discipline of business-to-business marketing has a long history (HADJIKHANI and LAPLACA, 2013) and for almost as long researchers have sought to understand and explain how business-to-business markets operate (HUNT, 2013; MOLLER, 2013; SHETH, et al. 1988; CONNOR, 1991). However, for the greater part of the twentieth century, the bulk of academic research in the field of marketing has focused on consumer markets (LAPLACA and KATRICHIS, 2009) rather than business markets. Beginning in 1971 with the introduction of Industrial Marketing Management, the first journal dedicated to business-to-business markets, academic researchers have had an increasing number of publication outlets available to them. IMM was followed by the Journal of Business Research (1973), Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing (1985), Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing (1986), Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing (1992) and the IMP Journal (2006). As these journals were launched, they gradually grew in impact to the field of marketing. At the same time the number of marketing researchers focusing on B2B markets was undergoing significant growth. While the academic field of marketing is dominated by those researching consumer markets, this does not reflect the significance of B2B markets in the United States economy or in economies around the world. The latest data on sales transactions in the United States shows the following comparison: