ÂÜÀòÉç¹ÙÍø

Engaging Young Consumers

Special issue call for papers from Young Consumers

Guest Editors:

Dr. Manish Gupta, IBS Hyderabad, a Constituent of IFHE, Deemed to be University, India

Focus:

Engagement is increasingly becoming popular in marketing literature. Though a relatively new concept, it has attracted the attention of both academics and practitioners. This popularity can primarily be attributed to the finding that engaging consumers has considerably positive consequences for the organizations (Sawhney, Verona, and Prandelli, 2005). An engaged consumer is typically the one who is physically, emotionally, and cognitively attached to an organization or brand. Adapted mainly from organizational behavior literature, its definition is under scrutiny for gaining clarity on the specifics of it. Given this ambiguity, engagement in marketing literature has been looked through several lenses (Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014; Verhoef, Reinartz, and Krafft, 2010).

Today, marketers are facing the challenge of engaging consumers for sustainable sales and researchers are moving toward finding the potential ways and means. Though youth buying behavior and attachment behavior is different from others, the marketing literature has limited studies that explore such differences. Therefore, the main contribution of this special issue is expected to be in exploring the construct and understanding the antecedents and consequences of engaging young consumers in different contexts.

The special issue has the following objectives:

1. To understand the factors affecting consumer engagement among youth.
2. To explore the consequences of engaging young consumers.
3. To gain clarity on the constructs relating to engagement in the marketing literature.

Themes:

This call for papers invites submissions that focus on engagement of young consumers from marketing and social science scholars and are related to (but not limited to) the following themes:

1. Engagement behavior of youth consumers
2. Comparative studies on consumer engagement between youth & others
3. Empirical clarification on brand- vs consumer- vs customer- engagement
4. Dark side of engaging young consumers
5. Organizational perspective and practices for engaging young consumers
6. Cross-country studies on engaging youth consumers
7. Meta-analytical review of role of age in affecting customer/consumer/brand engagement
8. Empirical clarification on uniqueness of the engagement concept in the marketing literature
9. Role of social media/internet in engaging young consumers

Types of Papers:

Manuscripts that include cross-country, dyadic, longitudinal, diary method, multi-wave, multi-level, meta-analysis, experimental, mixed method approaches are particularly encouraged. Qualitative and other quantitative studies are expected to have rigorous methodology in terms of establishing reliability (credibility) and validity (dependability). Manuscripts that scientifically address measurement issues are also invited.

All the manuscripts would be first reviewed by the guest editor to ascertain the special issue-manuscript fit. Suitable manuscripts would undergo the journal’s standard double-blind review procedure. Seven (7) papers will be considered for publication in this special issue.

Submission Procedure:

Submissions to this journal are through the ScholarOne submission system here:

Please visit the author guidelines for the journal at:

Please ensure you select this special issue from the relevant drop down menu on page four of the submission process.

Authors are encouraged to send their Abstract to Dr. Manish Gupta at manish.gupta@ibsindia.org for initial comments on its fit with the special issue before submitting their full papers through the ScholarOne submission system.

Full Paper Submission Deadline: January 31, 2019

References:

Jaakkola, E., and Alexander, M. (2014), “The role of customer engagement behavior in value co-creation: a service system perspective”, Journal of Service Research, Vol 17 No. 3, pp. 247-261.

Sawhney, M., Verona, G., and Prandelli, E. (2005), “Collaborating to create: The Internet as a platform for customer engagement in product innovation”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol 19 No. 4, pp. 4-17.

Verhoef, P. C., Reinartz, W. J., and Krafft, M. (2010), “Customer engagement as a new perspective in customer management”, Journal of Service Research, Vol 13 No. 3, pp. 247-252.

---