Shopper Marketing: Profiting from the Place Where Suppliers, Brand Manufacturers, and Retailers Connect

9. What Do Academics Actually Do and How Do They Think?

Academics, or scholars, conduct research that primarily either builds or tests theoretical models. They have the potential to make significant contributions to your thinking and practice. But to use them and their knowledge most effectively, you should know a little bit about what they are incentivized to do and how they think. This chapter is about that. Most academics are interested in generalizable knowledge, meaning that models or frameworks can apply to various situations and contexts, and ideally models that remain stable over a period of time. So, for example, although they may not be interested in a specific marketing fad, they may very well be interested in how fads in general emerge ...