MSI’s research priorities are the issues that leading corporations see as important for improving business practice through academic research. The priorities serve as a blueprint for MSI’s research program, guiding decisions on research projects, reports, and conferences.

The priorities are updated every two years in a process beginning with focus groups of senior marketing executives and leading academic researchers and culminating with a formal vote by member companies. The current priorities were established in October 2004. Selection criteria include the importance and relevance of a topic to member companies as well as its researchability and potential to have an impact on the field.

MSI encourage academic researchers from marketing and related fields to submit proposals for research projects and/or completed papers for the working paper series on these topics.

The 2004-2006 priority topics resulted from a five-phase series of activities that included:

1. mail and e-mail surveys of MSI member firms and academic trustees;
2. discussions at MSI’s May 2004 Research Generation Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia;
3. discussions at the April 2004 MSI Trustees Meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts;
4. grouping of the research topics;
5. balloting by trustees to rank-order the research topics.

Research Tools

• Non-traditional tools and methods (e.g., design, anthropology)

• Validating new data collection methods

• Instituting processes to ensure the adoption and use of new tools/methodologies

• Predicting the future (e.g., scenarios)

• Assessing the impact of marketing programs on brand equity and how the impact changes across stages of the product life cycle

• Measuring brand equity (relating financial and non-financial measures)

• Relating brand and customer equity

• Allocating budgets across media, markets, geographic regions, etc.

• Incorporating non-traditional media (e.g., product placements, sponsorships, “buzz marketing,” in-store marketing) in marketing mix models

• Making trade-offs between investment in mature products/markets versus new products/markets

• Managing brand equity through the product life cycle

• Managing brand equity for different constituencies (consumers, distributors, press, analysts, etc.)

• Orchestrating brand communications across all customer touch-points

• Brand architecture (e.g., sub-brands vs. corporate brands)

• Cross-cultural and global marketing and branding

• Managing customer experiences; in-store marketing; “retailtainment”

Top tier research priorities are sufficiently important that they deserve intensive research attention. Research proposals that address these topics are especially encouraged, and it is likely that MSI will hold conferences, organize research competitions, and possibly commission studies on these subjects.

Role of Marketing

• Evaluating and controlling marketing performance: the impact of reward systems

• Managing marketing as a “value-creator” versus an expense

• Growth by expanding business scope

• Improving utilization of marketing information by managers

• Communicating with and influencing decision makers (e.g., changing “executive intuition” in favor of customers)

• Marketing competencies: what makes a great marketer?

• How to organize marketing

• Ensuring customer-relevant innovation in all stages of new product/service development

• Organic growth

• Discontinuous growth strategies that reshape the industry

• The role of marketing research in discontinuous innovation

• Developing new tools for proactive understanding of customers

• Assessing the effectiveness of new product development processes

• Methods for predicting new product/service adoption

• Creating profitable product portfolios

• Differences in marketing’s impact on financial metrics for nondurables/durables/services, for long sales-cycle businesses, at different stages of life cycle

• Marketing’s relations with other functions in the organization

• Anticipating and influencing competitors’ pricing

• Understanding and measuring price sensitivity in B2B markets

• Optimal pricing over time; pricing over the product life cycle

• Creating and pricing product and/or service bundles

• Organizational issues in making pricing decisions

• Enhancing the role of branding in a sales-driven culture

Top tier research priorities are sufficiently important that they deserve intensive research attention. Research proposals that address these topics are especially encouraged, and it is likely that MSI will hold conferences, organize research competitions, and possibly commission studies on these subjects.

Managing Customers

• Customer portfolio management: balancing acquisition and retention

• Measuring and predicting the lifetime value of a customer

• Segmenting and managing by type of relationship desired by customer/firm

• Managing and maintaining customers through multiple channels

• Implementing and assessing the impact of CRM

Growth

• Ensuring customer-relevant innovation in all stages of new product/service development

• Organic growth

• Discontinuous growth strategies that reshape the industry

• The role of marketing research in discontinuous innovation

• Developing new tools for proactive understanding of customers

• Assessing the effectiveness of new product development processes

• Methods for predicting new product/service adoption

• Understanding and marketing to special populations (e.g., teens, ethnic groups, developing markets, etc.)

• How to deal with solution sellers as intermediaries

• When will customers co-create a solution?

• Role of marketing in identifying and delivering solutions through the supply chain

• Selling through your customers

• Dealing with a dominant customer (retailer, distributor, channel, etc.)

MSI funds high-quality research that deals with topics of importance to member companies. Results of MSI-supported studies appear first as MSI working papers and/or as conference presentations, and subsequently as articles in refereed journals, scholarly monographs, or books.

MSI supports research with the potential for application by managers as well as more basic or exploratory work. No one approach or methodology is favored over another as long as the form is appropriate to the objectives of the research. Studies may be conceptual or empirical and may involve literature reviews, comparative studies, field or laboratory experiments, model building, or theory development. We encourage cross-disciplinary work building on theories, research results, and methods from disciplines of relevance to marketing. MSI and its member companies strongly endorse using actual consumers, customers, and executives rather than student subjects in research projects.

Central to MSI’s research program is the belief that academics and practitioners can mutually benefit from interacting throughout the process of planning, conducting, and reporting research. Research proposals and reports may undergo review by representatives from corporate sponsors as well as academic experts, and many projects receive business cooperation. When projects are completed, researchers often present their results at MSI meetings, where they can discuss their work with MSI member company executives and other academics.

Eligibility and Types of Support

Academic researchers (faculty members, or doctoral students working collaboratively with faculty advisors) can apply for financial and/or nonfinancial support for research projects. As detailed below, financial support is given in the form of standard grants or competition prizes and awards. Nonfinancial support usually takes the form of access to data, contacts with executives, or access to interview or study sites within firms.

Standard Grants

Most MSI grants are made to cover researchers’ out-of-pocket costs for data collection, respondent fees, research assistants, and similar expenses. Generally, these grants are in the $5,000 to $20,000 range. Regardless of the level of support requested, the primary criterion for accepting proposals is quality. Note that MSI does not provide salary replacement for the principal researcher(s), funds for the purchase of equipment or software, university overhead, tuition, or funds for travel to non-MSI conferences.

Requests for larger sums may sometimes be funded, typically with additional financial support from corporations. These larger projects usually involve substantial interaction between the researchers and the sponsoring corporations. The process of raising corporate support may take several months and often involves meeting with potential sponsors. MSI has also, from time to time, cooperated with other associations or institutes to support large-scale projects.

Doctoral Competition

The annual Alden G. Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition for outstanding thesis proposals on any of the priority topics listed in this booklet is open to doctoral candidates in marketing and related fields. Up to five awards are given each year, and winners receive a $5,000 prize. To be eligible, a candidate must be actively working on his or her thesis and be no more than 50 percent finished, as certified by his or her chairperson.

Proposals must be no longer than 20 typed, double-spaced pages, including bibliography and all exhibits, and they are due on July 31 of each year. They are judged on the potential contribution of the research, its relevance to managerial concerns, the importance of the topic both to academics and practitioners, the quality of the conceptual development, the appropriateness of the methodology, the overall feasibility of the research, the originality of the proposed research, and the “fit” of the research with MSI’s priority topics. Those interested in entering this competition should visit our website for more information.

Special Topic Competitions

MSI occasionally sponsors special competitions on selected priority topics. Competition announcements specify eligibility and submission procedures. Academic researchers not currently on the MSI mailing list should contact MSI to ensure they receive notification of future competitions.

Nonfinancial Support

In addition to financial support, MSI can on occasion provide useful nonfinancial support to participating researchers. Examples include: (1) access to data, (2) advice and ideas from member company managers, and (3) in exceptionally strong cases, assistance in arranging for interview or study sites inside major corporations. The exact nature of this support varies widely from project to project and requires that the research provides clear benefits to member companies.

Research Proposals

Submitting Proposals

MSI accepts both proposals and pre-proposals. If there is any question about whether a project fits the MSI priorities, or about the researchability of the topic, a pre-proposal should be the first step in applying for MSI support. In such cases, researchers are also encouraged to contact MSI’s Research Director for clarification. The pre-proposal itself is a letter that outlines the topics to be studied and the researchers’ preliminary research questions and approach. It is intended to elicit MSI’s reaction to the topic and research concept before the researcher invests substantial time in writing a full proposal. Nevertheless, the more complete the thinking in the pre-proposal, the more likely it is to receive encouragement and constructive comments.

There is no required standard format for full proposals, although clarity and brevity are appreciated. Proposals of 8-12 pages are usually the most effective. Proposals should include:

• A one-page summary
• A background section giving a brief review of the relevant literature and a statement of why the proposed research is expected to contribute to knowledge and improve business practice
• A list of research questions, models, or hypotheses describing the issues to be studied, the researchers’ initial insights or beliefs, and what should be learned from the study
• A description of research design and methodology
• A timetable, including key research dates and an expected completion date
• Funding or support needs (Note: MSI ordinarily supports out-of-pocket expenses such as data collection, respondent fees, research assistants, and similar costs.)
• A statement of expected outcomes or new knowledge, such as a new definition or framework, a new methodology, a better understanding of how key variables affect the marketing process, or new information to assist managers in making better marketing decisions
• Vita(e) of the researcher(s)

MSI working papers are distributed to a diverse audience of practitioners and academics.

MSI considers papers for inclusion in the working paper series, even if the research was not originally supported by MSI, if it deals with a priority subject, represents a significant advance over the existing literature, and has not been widely disseminated elsewhere. Authors are expected to stress the managerial significance of their findings. See MSI Working Paper Guidelines for more information.

All submissions are evaluated by the review committee consisting of the MSI executive director, academic research associates, and professional staff. Reviews typically take about four weeks. Papers that pass the screening may be sent for further review to selected academics and practitioners. Accepted papers are edited at MSI, and are subject to MSI’s Terms and Conditions for Working Papers, specified in the MSI Working Paper Guidelines.

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