Marketing and strategy

Our marketing and strategy section is home to over 30 scholars whose internationally recognised expertise spans a broad spectrum of marketing and strategy issues.

We contribute to our specialist areas of disciplinary expertise through our research work and disseminate these insights through our teaching, knowledge diffusion and impact activities. Ensuring that our programmes remain at the forefront, we employ a wide range of research methods that underpin our conceptual, empirical, theory development and applied research projects.

Our longstanding contributions in business sustainability and corporate social responsibility means that the section’s work addresses many of the Grand Challenges that society faces, and has made us a key foundation for the School’s Public Value Strategy.

We also deliver impactful research as evidenced by a study published in the Australasian Journal of Marketing (Souter et al., 2015), where we ranked number one amongst marketing departments in universities in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand for the research impact of our faculty.

Our work within the section is then focused on high-quality research that is relevant to our stakeholders, generated through extensive collaboration, to disseminate our insights and contributions widely to deliver impact for society.

Key dimensions

There are five key dimensions that characterise the work of our section.

Core to cutting-edge

Our work addresses many of the core and compelling foundations of marketing and strategy including marketing strategy processes and capabilities, competitive advantage, new product development, consumer behaviour, branding and marketing communications.

It also embraces more emerging phenomena including Big Data, AI, digital transformation and contemporary challenges including consumer social responsibility, the sharing economy, plastic packaging, anti-consumption, over-tourism and the impact of “fake news”.

Public value orientated

Much of our work is explicitly focused on public value including projects on sustainable and ethical marketing, Fairtrade, social enterprise, the circular economy, sustainability in sports and events, and the application of consumer behaviour perspectives in unusual contexts including criminality, organ donation, health behaviours, addiction and charitable giving.

We also work with organisations beyond the business sphere including the National Health Service, major charities, Social Enterprise UK, Welsh Government, sports organisations and festival organisers.

Local to global

Our scope ranges from links with local companies and initiatives, such as the Grangetown Community Gateway project or local enterprise Pharmabees, to working with international organisations on globally important issues. Our projects are developed with research partners globally but we have sustained programmes of work in Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan, South Korea, UAE and the USA.

We also place an emphasis on a range of cross-border perspectives including multi-cultural marketing, international business, exporting and emerging markets.

Innovation imperative

We undertake innovative research in both method and content. We have developed ground-breaking studies in a range of fields including consumer behaviour and misbehaviour, marketing sustainability, programmatic advertising, strategic alliances, strategic leadership, competitive dynamics, online influencers, digital possessions, embodied consumption, ethnic consumers and collaborative consumption.

Innovation is also a recurring theme within our research, embracing projects on social innovation, service innovation, responsible innovation, business model innovation and the contribution innovation makes to firms’ performance.

Entrepreneurial in nature

Our interest in entrepreneurship is reflected in both our teaching and research. In teaching this is exemplified by our MSc in Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship and by our emphasis on developing practical research projects for students embedded within organisations.

It is also featured in research and community engagement projects focussing on the facilitating role that entrepreneurship can play in promoting inclusion and empowerment for particular groups including women, refugees and ex-offenders.

We also engage in a range of research projects focusing on small businesses including family firms and both commercial and social enterprises which we use as a co-creation opportunity to generate new insights whilst improving the outcomes of our partners.

Collaboration

Our researchers work with a dynamic group of PhD Scholars within the School, and also with colleagues from across the University in a number of ways, and formally through the Festivals Research Group, the Sustainable Places Research Institute, the Crime and Security Research Institute, CAST (Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations) and the Responsible Innovation Network amongst others.

Our work has been published extensively in the leading global academic journals in our field including:

• British Journal of Management
• Business Strategy and The Environment
• California Management Review
• Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
• European Journal of Marketing
• Industrial Marketing Management
• International Journal of Research in Marketing
• Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
• Journal of Business Ethics
• Journal of Business Research
• Journal of Consumer Research
• Journal of International Business Studies
• Journal of International Marketing
• Journal of Marketing
• Journal of Management Studies
• Journal of Product Innovation Management
• Journal of Strategic Marketing
• Journal of World Business
• Journal of Retailing
• Journal of Service Research
• Management Science
• Organization Science
• Strategic Management Journal
• Tourism Management