BRINGING TOGETHER ON AND OFF LINE DATA & METRICS

MAKING SENSE OF A CONTINOUS CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

X.ITE is pleased to announce an initiative to foster novel research on the broad topic of Omnichannel marketing metrics. We have allocated a special fund of 20.000€ to cover the direct costs of a research grant. Competitive submissions should propose high quality research on critical questions in this area that are relevant to both academics and practitioners. This is open to all research methodologies and approaches.

Submissions will be evaluated using a two-stage process. The initial submission should be a pre-proposal not more than 1,200 words in length describing the proposed research plan (details below). Pre-proposals may be submitted by April 30^th 2017. X.ITE will evaluate the materials received by May 30^th 2017 and the authors of promising pre-proposals will be encouraged to submit a full proposal (no more than 20 double-spaced pages) for consideration for funding. The deadline for full proposals is June 30^th 2017. The funding decisions will be made by July 30^th 2017.

BACKGROUND

The unprecedented reach of new media has forced firms to increasingly rely on it as a marketing channel. 

Customers are now interacting with firms through multiple touchpoints during the purchasing journey. Against the backdrop of connectivity on multiple devices, a crucial question that arises is how companies can improve their leveraging the huge amount of information from such multiple touchpoints for decision making. The general objective of the present research competition is to detect innovative methods to integrate information coming from different sources through the detection of new methods and metrics.

Topics: Topics appropriate for the research competition include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Bringing on and offline sources and types of information together to support better decisions;
• New marketing performance measurement tools that combine behavioral theory and marketing frameworks leveraging on digital, social and offline data;
• The most relevant differences in this process for B2B versus B2C;
• Detecting new approaches and data sources that can contribute to the generate value for firms;
• The role of artificial intelligence, cognitive computing and machine learning in generate relevant customer insight and metrics.
• The role of IoT in enabling new touchpoints and related metrics

SUBMISSIONS
All pre-proposals should follow this format:

• Title: Title of Research
• Researchers: Name, affiliation and contact information for all researchers
• Statement of intended contribution: This section should include a clear, concise statement of how the proposed research would provide a novel and interesting contribution and what marketing managers might do differently as a result of the research findings.
• Motivation and research question(s): This section should include a statement of the specific research question(s) that will be addressed, why they are important and interesting, and what the researchers expect to learn from answering these questions.
• Brief description of the research design and methodology: This section should include study design, data sources/collection procedures, experiments to be run (if applicable), modeling techniques to be used (if applicable), and any other relevant details.
• Overall Funding and Support Needs: This section should include a brief description of the budget for the project including specific budget items and amounts (not to exceed 20.000€).
• Vita(e) of the researchers.

Pre-proposals should not exceed 1,200 words excluding vita(e) and title page.
Pre-proposals are encouraged to draw upon diverse theoretical perspectives and methodologies. Studies may be conceptual or empirical; and they may involve combinations of methodological approaches including literature reviews, comparative studies, observational and ethnographic studies, naturalistic, laboratory, or field experiments, econometric models, and so forth. Projects using multiple methodologies are especially welcomed. Researchers are encouraged to identify industry collaborators.

There is no required standard format for full proposals, although clarity and brevity are appreciated. In addition to a cover letter, submissions should include:

• A one-page summary
• A statement of expected outcomes or new knowledge, such as a new definition of the phenomenon or framework, a new methodology, a better understanding of how key variables affect the marketing process, or new information to assist managers in making better marketing decisions
• A background section giving a brief review of the relevant literature and a statement of how the proposed research is expected to contribute to knowledge and improve business practice
• A list of research questions, models, or hypotheses describing the issues to be studied, the researchers’ initial insights or beliefs, and what should be learned from the study
• A detailed description of research design and methodology
• A timetable, including dates for key research milestones, deliverables, and an expected completion date
• Funding or support needs (typically, an itemized budget)
• Vita(e) of the researcher(s), as well as a short biographical note on each of the authors

The main body of the full proposal should be no more than 20 double-spaced pages in length. Please feel free to include any additional materials that might be useful to the reviewers in appendices (for example, drafts of research materials, questionnaires, more detailed explanations of statistical analysis, and/or modeling plans, lengthy literature review, description of datasets to be used, etc.).

PROPOSAL SELECTION

The primary criterion for accepting proposals is quality. Proposals are initially screened by X.ITE scientific committee. On occasion, proposals may be sent for further review to academics who have a special expertise in the field or to appropriate member company executives.

Proposals are judged in terms of: (1) potential contribution to practice and thought, (2) originality and intellectual appeal of the proposed research, (3) quality of conceptual development, (4) appropriateness of the methodology for the research, (5) feasibility of the research, and (6) qualifications of the researchers for the project.

EXPECTED OUTPUT

When a proposal is accepted, X.ITE prepares a letter of agreement that outlines the responsibilities of both the researchers and X.ITE. Researchers agree to submit a written progress report at the halfway point (light review and cases to be presented in a special workshop scheduled on October 27^th 2017 in Rome) and a final paper describing the results of the research. Working papers should be submitted to X.ITE before submission to refereed journals. At the conclusion of a project, X.ITE may on occasion arrange for findings to be presented at conferences with other researchers and interested practitioners.