What,Why and How ‘Shared Goals’ Are Important in Academic Research? What Is There for Marketing Scholars?

Editor, FIIB Business Review, Fortune Institute of International Business (FIIB), New Delhi, India

There are numerous theories, multiple branches and 243 active Scopus journals on the marketing subject. Yet, why academic research in marketing is still not considered as a direct vehicle to advance industry practices? However, research in the marketing domain is advanced to the best extent possible. At the same time, no organization can fathom its business development or revenue growth without marketing. It occupies a central role in business management practices as well as academics. If we look at it from an academic research lens, academic scholars have options to perform academic research (publishing in journals), consulting research (research projects) and commercial research (business research).

This editorial is not the first one to talk about what should be the future of marketing. Scholars in marketing take deep dives from time to time to relate the changing sociological, economic, geological, technological and geographical forces to update marketing knowledge and advance the practices. This endeavour aims to establish principles of marketing (Clark, 1922; Maynard & Beckman, 1939), world marketing (Collins, 1935), realizing marketing as science (Converse, 1945), theories in marketing (Cox & Alderson, 1950; Hunt, 1971) or to construct new concepts and knowledge such as micromarketing (Bartels & Jenkins, 1977), managerial approach in marketing (McCarthy, 1960) and so on. The list is long enough to put on in one paper. Similarly, scholars have recommended various practices such as consumer education (Adkins & Ozanne, 2005), targeting low-income segments (Alwitt, 1995; Prahalad & Lieberthal, 1998), social marketing (Andreasen, 2003), and so on. Recent marketing literature tends to lean towards technological developments (Leeflang & Wittink (1992); Rust et al., 2010; Petit et al., 2019) yet, scholars give due consideration to the multi-disciplinarity of marketing (Ardito et al., 2019; Govindan, 2024; Grewal et al., 2020).

This editorial calls academic scholars in general and marketing scholars specifically to look at current practices and future developments from a shared goal perspective. Shared goals are explored in literature from different perspectives such as knowledge sharing (Chow & Chan, 2008), organizational goals (Haas et al., 1992) and social goals (Jovanovic et al., 2015). Various questions arise in this conversation, such as (a) what are shared goals? (b) why shared goals matter and why we need to bring ‘shared goals’ direction to our research? (c) which shared goals matter for marketing scholars and practitioners? And, finally, reflections on future research areas.

Well, let us understand the first question about shared goals. The propensity to engage and pursue common goals is characteristically human and manifests early in development, despite evidence of ‘proto’ versions of cooperative actions in non-human species. The tendency to share goals and intentions with others might support solving problems, sharing resources, sharing risks, creating social and professional bonds, knowledge sharing and so on. Thus, a shared goal is both ‘in common’ between co-agents and ‘divided up’ into individual sub-goals that each actor needs to achieve to fully accomplish the intended target (Butterfill, 2012). To answer the next question, that is, ‘why shared goals matter?’ we must think about ‘whom’ we are talking about, to whom these goals matter and why. There can be social-, personal- and business-oriented goals. These goals are often shared between people who do not necessarily belong to the same team, same work format/roles or same organization, same countries, same society and same interest groups. Because of their different backgrounds, expertise, interests, belongingness, work type and socio-economic status, their roles differ from each other. Hence, their interest, commitments and contribution differ from each other in these goals, irrespective of whether the nature of the goal is societal, business or personal. The primary owners of goals need to play more significant roles than the agents who facilitate and support the owners in achieving these goals or influence the other actor’s position directly or indirectly. For example, achieving ‘good health conditions’ or ‘low accidents on the roads’, these goals have multiple owners, agents and actors. This creates responsibilities for the public in general and something that everyone would like to achieve. Yet, the participation of policymakers, payers, experts, service providers, doctors and patients, drivers and passengers, fellow consumers and other actors will have different roles to play. Therefore, I see the three main roles that we play while sharing goals, that is, owners, agents and actors. Most of the goals are accomplished through interpersonal interactions between the owners, agents and actors. Therefore, it is crucial to create holistic scenarios that are inclusive and are able to bring clarity on the roles of owners, agents and actors.

Before moving on to the third question, I would accept that abundant research has been done on business organizations as goal-attaining entities across the business management disciplines. However, the degree to which goals are consensually shared and the way organizational goals are communicated remain largely unexplored (Haas et al., 1992). Therefore, this perspective has the potential to offer new insights, draw new perspective and provide clarity to business management research.

In today’s technology-centric world, organizations strive to explore, measure and maximize value throughout normal and dynamic scenarios (Kumar & Srivastava, 2022). Considering the cross- and multi-disciplinarity of marketing, integration of goals becomes important in achieving high and enduring customer value. ‘What customers want’ is one of the prominent questions that companies must consider. In critical sectors such as education and healthcare, achieving high value is not possible by the company alone. Yet, the primary goal of companies is to aspire to excellence for their providers and consumers. Hence, crucially, the tendency to share intentions and goals with others may facilitate the formation of desired value propositions (Hommel et al., 2009; Iani et al., 2011).

Because the world of marketing moves around ‘value’—exploring, creating, sharing, communicating, delivering, measuring, maximizing and embedding—marketing is one of the most relevant disciplines of business to further explore through shared goals perspectives. I see some of the following areas that are relevant to be explored by marketing scholars with an objective to advance marketing practices and research.

Sharing cause/joint goals : Sharing causes and goals is one of the research preferences of marketing scholars. Whether it is cause-related marketing alliance (Liu & Ko, 2011; Till & Nowak, 2000) or creating campaigns (Mora & Vila, 2020), marketing exists for a reason. These joint goals between various marketing actors including consumers always help in enhancing the value. Hence, setting and achieving goals together, enhancing value together, solving consumer problems and accessing opportunities early are some interesting areas to look at from the shared goals perspective.

Sharing resources, cost and risk : Sharing economy models are recognized as game changers; companies like Airbnb, Uber and Swiggy have not only responded to cost reduction but also to benefit various consumer and business segments. Marketers struggle to harmonize the diverse contexts of the sharing economy under one umbrella (Eckhardt et al., 2019; Lim, 2020). Also, there are several risks that marketers face and remain under the pressure of losing value in routine such as reduced supply, longer waiting times, customer churn and so on (Lahiri et al., 2023). Sharing of knowledge, expertise, capital resources and spaces (including physical and digital space) are quite common practices amongst firms. Sharing develops capabilities (Perks & Moxey, 2011), and sharing of resources, knowledge and risk is not limited to business actors; it very much exists among consumers too (Dellaert, 2019; Hellwig et al., 2015). Shared goals play a vital role in responding to cost reduction, value enhancement, risk-free and knowledge economy scenarios.

Sharing network relationships/referrals : The digital marketing world interestingly shaped the new marketing practices and matrices on ratings, sharing, views and referrals. Sharing experiences and stories brought commercialization (influencers/experts) to marketing practices, and sharing content is quite common among consumers (Rana et al., 2023), and companies also sell and share information (Xu & Li, 2022). In this ever-evolving digital, physical and phygital business world, marketing scholars are responsible for bringing solutions to investment on networks and referrals. On the other hand, enhancing transparency, re-organization of consumer communities and social activities in marketing are critical issues that need to be addressed (Achrol & Kotler, 1999).

Sharing rewards and outcomes : Network marketing companies (e.g., Amway and Forever Living) employed direct marketing concepts to save marketing cost and share rewards between producers and consumers. Rewards have also been taken as a significant outcome of customer loyalty and retention. Over a time, marketing practised pay-for-performance (PforP) practice to marketing staff. These practices have organizations not only helped to achieve co-branding and high sales but also to achieve higher customer satisfaction and skill enhancement in marketing staff. Recent research by Lahiri et al. (2023), on ridesharing platforms using goal-oriented approach, is a perfect example of both conceptualization and execution. Marketing scholars have a chance to explore more customer-to-consumer as well as business-to-business rewards and mutual sharing between different owners, agents and actors.

To conclude, I would like to underscore an important point about ‘shared goals’ to pre-empt possible questions from the readers: Whether sustainable development goals (SDGs) should be considered as shared goals. In my opinion, yes, SDGs should be considered as shared goals; yet, their assignment and measurement should be routed through their owners, agents and actors, and different parties can be interchangeably used to overcome the biases.

I welcome your suggestions and feedback on issue 13.3 of FIIB Business Review at editorfbr@fiib.edu.in

Enjoy reading the issue.