Our aim is to be a leading marketing science (i.e., quant marketing) programme in the world. We conduct theory-grounded research with a quantitative modelling orientation and address important substantive areas in marketing with high academic and societal impact.
Publications are targeted at top journals in the marketing field, and we steer our faculty as much as possible to produce high-quality high-impact research.
Research Areas
The research programme conducts research that focuses on three substantive areas, in particular Marketing and Innovation, Marketing Decision-Making and Preference Measurement, and Marketing Analytics. The research in Marketing and Innovation develops both new substantive insights in this domain (e.g., in pharma and automotive) as well as analyses new managerial intervention and modelling techniques.
In Marketing Decision-Making and Preference Measurement, we work on the integration of behavioural decision-making theory in econometric models of consumer behaviour, for example in areas such as financial decision making and societally sensitive or illegal behaviour. In Marketing Analytics, we develop econometric and data science models grounded in economic theory to predict the (dynamic) effects of marketing actions on individual choice behaviour.
Research quality
In the past period, the Marketing programme has established its high-quality output, while also increasing its academic impact as thought leaders in the field. In terms of output during the evaluation period, the marketing programme has published 30 Marketing ERIM P*journal articles and 3 additional high-quality (AIS >2.2) articles. Even more importantly, we achieved several other important milestones in key indicators of research quality, such as awards, prestigious roles in the field, and relevance to nonacademics (see 3c and our narratives). More specifically, the increased academic impact of our work during the evaluation period has been reflected in senior roles in top journals in the field (Stefan Stremersch Associate Editor at Journal of Marketing and Journal of Marketing Research, Benedict Dellaert Associate Editor at International Journal of Research in Marketing) and a broader editorial board membership of various members in the Marketing programme (editorial board memberships in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and International Journal of Research in Marketing).
Our focus on research quality is also reflected in recent awards assigned to department members’ work:
- Martijn De Jong: 2015 Paul Green award and AMA SIG 2020 Global Marketing Award
- Stefan Stremersch: 2015 International Francqui Chair at University of Ghent, 2015 IJRM Best Paper Award, 2020 EMAC Distinguished Scholar Award, 2020 MOA Insights Scientist of the Year Award).
In terms of research grants the department has been equally successful:
- Benedict Dellaert and Bas Donkers obtained in 2016 and 2020 Netspar grants
- Vardit Landsman who obtained the ISF grant in 2016.
Impact is made through guest editorships of special issues and thought leader papers (e.g., Stefan Stremersch was requested to be a guest editor for a special issue of Journal of Marketing) and researchers were invited to write a thought leadership paper in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and International Journal of Research in Marketing).
Faculty members also held secondary appointments at well-established international business schools (Benedict Dellaert: Monash, Melbourne, Vardit Landsman: Coller, Tel Aviv, and Stefan Stremersch: IESE, Barcelona).
Our work has also increasingly become better and bigger. This is reflected for example in articles being placed as lead articles in journal issues and increasing citations and press coverage of our work. Creativity is well appreciated in the Marketing programme. We do not want to publish papers that build on or marginally extend well-established streams of research but are focused on producing papers that steer an entire area. Good examples are De Jong’s work on social desirability in survey work or the recent work of Stefan Stremersch and Nuno Camacho on faculty research incentives (lead article, Journal of Marketing).
Societal Relevance
In the programme, we place great emphasis not only on rigor but also on relevance. Senior faculty members regularly work with business and societal partners to develop and test new academic theorising, often also in partnership with junior colleagues and PhD students from the programme. Through this process, we aim to achieve a mutual positive impact from academia on practice and from practice on theory, where one informs and challenges the other in an ongoing learning process.
In Marketing and Innovation, the work done by Stefan Stremersch, Nuno Camacho, and others with industry partners to study and understand customer centric innovation success has allowed them to have a strong impact both in academia and practice. These activities have led to several business innovation awards based on Stefan Stremersch’s work (e.g., the Innovationspreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft (the Innovation Award of the German Economy)) as well as a recognition by practice as MOA Scientist of the year award for Stefan Stremersch in 2020. Marketing Decision-Making and Preference Measurement, the work done by Benedict Dellaert and Bas Donkers has led to new insights and practices in the pension industry as well academic publications. They are also active as board members in Netspar’s platform organisation, and the research has generated multiple publications for practice and industry reports (e.g., in ESB and the Netspar Design papers series).
Faculty members are also active on new societal initiatives within Erasmus. For example, Bas Donkers has been instrumental in connecting the programme to new initiatives in the area of Data Science and Analytics at Erasmus University, while Martijn de Jong has established collaborations with researchers in Erasmus University Medical Center and done research for the Roman Catholic Church (diocese of Rotterdam in 2020, the diocese of Den Bosch in 2021). Several faculty members also hold or have held secondary roles in industry (e.g., Benedict Dellaert (supervisory board member at Independer.nl), Bas Donkers (chief of science at SphereMall), Stefan Stremersch (founder MTI)).