Reflections of academic interests on the appeal of the internet and the web

Citation

Tiu Wright, L. (2006), "Reflections of academic interests on the appeal of the internet and the web", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 9 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2006.21609dag.002

Reflections of academic interests on the appeal of the internet and the web

Of particular interest are the growing numbers of papers proliferating about the internet and the world wide web at major academic conferences around the world, such as those of the American Marketing Association (AMA), Academy of Marketing (AM) and the European Marketing Academy (EMAC).

The 35th EMAC Conference at Athens, 23-26 May 2006, was attended by delegates from many different countries, e.g. Europe, USA, South America, Australia and the Far East. “New technologies and e-marketing” was one of the major tracks at this conference. The appeal of the internet and the web is reflected broadly in the spread of academic interests and contained in the posters sessions and papers presented at the conference such as, those from relationship marketing, services marketing, business and network marketing, retailing, channel management and logistics, international and cross-cultural marketing. Many papers included aspects of the Internet and/or the web in shaping strategies, the practices of suppliers, consumer behaviour and experiences.

The nature of large conferences with simultaneous tracks operating at the same time means that it is impossible to attend all the sessions concerning papers specifically about the internet or contexts associated with it. For good measure, a few examples within the “New technologies and e-marketing track” are provided here which broadly reflect the diversity of papers and scope of academic interests:

“E-mail customer service in the airline industry: a mystery study” by U. Bauernfeind and A. Dickinger.

“Consumer resistance to innovations” by M. Kleijnen, N. Lee and M.Wetzels.

“Collective memory and distributed cognition in online brand communities” by L. Sitz.

“Linking benefit segmentation and customer valuation – an approach for more effectiveness and efficiency in e-marketing” by T. Donnevert, H. Bauer-Hans and M. Hammerschmidt.

“Do resources mediate the relationship between internet and performance in the marketing domain? Testing the role of customer orientation and brand equity” by A. Ordanini and G. Rubera.

“Success factors of innovative B2C e-services” by J. Wouters, R. Bal and M.Wetzels.

“Consumers online: intentions, orientations and segmentation” by C. Jayawardhena, C. Dennis and L.T. Wright.

This last paper reflected on the tendency of published works in the literature to indicate that consumer pre-purchase orientations had little or no significant effects on the intensity of their online shopping. The authors provided counter-arguments from research studies.

Nothing stands still where the internet and the world wide web are concerned. One thing researchers can be sure of is the rich insight gleaned from people's uses and adaptations of such technologies for their purposes. Change, or rather the speed of change, can be a good thing.

Len Tiu Wright