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The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospection on the importance, origins and development of the research programs in the author’s career.

The study uses an autobiographical approach.

Most of the articles, research monographs and books that constitute this research and publishing efforts can be categorized into seven distinct, but related, research programs: channels of distribution; marketing theory; marketing’s philosophy debates; macromarketing and ethics; relationship marketing; resource-advantage theory; and marketing management and strategy. The value system that has guided these research programs has been shaped by specific events that took place in the author’s formative years. This essay chronicles these events and the origins and development of the seven research programs.

Chronicling the importance, origins and development of the seven research programs will hopefully motivate and assist other scholars in developing their own research programs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a personal retrospective on six of the key events/experiences that influenced the development of the structure, foundational premises, and models of the resource‐advantage theory of competition.

The paper uses a personal retrospective approach.

The paper finds that six key events influenced the development of resource‐advantage theory: B.J. “Bud” LaLonde emphasizes the works of Alderson; Rob Morgan suggests an article on the resource‐based theory of the firm; Roy Howell suggests a presentation on R‐A theory; Randy Sparks shows a “socialist calculation” article; Kim Boal suggests the Journal of Management Inquiry as a publication outlet; and Bob Phillips discusses his work on “firm effects vs industry effects”. The paper then relates each of the six events to the paths, routes, or procedures that are often proposed as (or reported to be) likely to lead to the development of theories.

By providing the evolutionary history of resource‐advantage theory, the paper provides implications for developing marketing theories.

The Legends in Marketing series presents compilations of the seminal works of marketing scholars who have made significant contributions to the discipline of marketing. This review discusses the structure and contents of the volumes that comprise Legends in Marketing: Shelby D. Hunt (Sage, forthcoming).

The purpose of this article is to explore linkages between committed customers and their willingness to serve as advocates and investigate the moderating influence of B2B loyalty programs toward supporting customer advocacy behaviors.

A model was developed to assess linkages between customer commitment and an assortment of customer advocacy behaviors, including sharing information, marketing research support, word‐of‐mouth referrals, and increasing repatronage. The model was tested on 248 agricultural business clients of a chemical manufacturer using confirmatory factor analysis. Multi‐group analysis was conducted to assess hypothesized B2B loyalty program membership effects.

The findings suggest that customers with stronger levels of commitment are indeed more willing to contribute as customer advocates. Surprisingly, B2B loyalty program membership shows no significant moderating effects on the tested model.

The tested model provides an expanded view of customer advocacy. Researchers are advised to regard this work as a starting‐point for expanded hypotheses development of future customer advocacy models.

The study considers the potential for how business customers can be further engaged to serve as advocates and thereby help improve the firm's marketing performance. However, when loyalty program membership is firm‐determined, marketers should not expect that the program will enhance customer advocacy behaviors toward the sponsoring firm.

Since much of the previous work on customer advocacy has been based on anecdotal evidence, the study advances the relationship marketing literature by providing empirical evidence for the multi‐dimensional view of customer advocacy behaviors and further argues that customer lifetime value (CLV) encapsulates customer advocacy.