Assembling a Research
Contribution When Things Keep
Falling Apart
Eileen Fischer
Schulich School of Business
York University
Bilkent Seminar of Consumption, Markets and Culture
2015
How this project started ….
Your assignment for the next 40
minutes:
• Discuss in small groups why the 2010 paper entitled
“Toward an understanding of relationship formation
between consumer collectives and celebrities in the
making” got rejected from JCR
• What was wrong about it from a theoretical point of
view?
• What else was wrong?
• Hint: You are essentially acting as reviewers of this
paper, so you might also want to come up
suggestions for how this one could be improved.
Key points made by reviewers (1)
• Key concepts need to be better defined/defended
– AND more clearly grounded in the data
– Of central concern is whether “relationships” are really
what fans have with contestants, or whether they merely
have attitudes
– Distinctions between e.g. admiration, empathy and
identification debatable based on data given
• Theoretical contribution relative to prior celebrity
theorization too incremental
• Theoretical distinction from brand community
literature not addressed
Key points made by reviewers (2)
• Data to support theory
– Can the data really support claims that some
contestants are gaining greater celebrity than
others, or that fans have stronger relationships
with some contestants than others?
– Can data really support claims that celebrity
emerges as a by product of collective practices
(what are fan’s real motivations in paying
attention to some contestants and not others)
So…what were our options for
theorization going forward?
• Should we stick with focal phenomenon
(emergence of celebrities) or switch to
another
– If so, what?
• Should we gather more data to support
theorization?
– If so, what would be required?
What did we do?
• Go back to the data
– Figure out what concepts and relationships we could
better support
• Gather more data
– Figure out what was happening with fans of the show
since data collection ended in 2008
• Ask ourselves
– “What is this an instance of [now]?”
• Iterate through possible research questions
related to this phenomenon that we could
address with our data
What changes between version sent
in 2010 and version sent in 2013?
Changes to theorization
• Unit of analysis
– From consumer/brand relationships to brand
audiences
• Focal phenomenon
– From relationship formation to audience
dissipation
• Enabling theory
– Explicitly adopt an enabling theory (assemblage)
versus just invoking concepts from celebrity and
relationship literatures
What changes from 2013 to 2015
• Conceptualization of brand type (from
epistemic to serial)
• Exposition of assemblage theory (much more
detail, some revision in our usage)
• Emphasis on materiality in the processes
outlined
• Labels on and details of process variables
• Discussion section – completely rewritten
WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT
THEORY BUILDING SO FAR
Practices of theory construction in our field
are socially constructed and in motion
• In the 1970s-1980s we
adopted our methods from
sociology, anthropology,
education, nursing …
• Since then, we evolved
them
• We cannot look to founding
fields for “best practice”
• Nor can we look only at
earlier writing in our own
field
We are questioning interview data as a
sole source for theory building
• Increasing
awareness of
interviews as
product of
interviewing
process
• Interviews
decreasingly
accepted as
evidence of actual
behaviors,
motives, even of
past feelings …. See: Alvesson, M. 2003 Beyond neo-positives and localists:
A reflexives approach to interview in organization research..
Academy of Management Review, 28 (1), 13-33
The amount of data we use to build
theory is increasing
• 8-10 interviews for studies at the individual level of analysis
is unlikely to suffice as once it might have
– Exact “n” required is not defined, but 20+ individual level interviews
for groups argued to be homogenous cannot hurt;
• As the level of analysis grows more aggregate, the number
of cases requires decreases
– But even for higher levels, comparisons can add value
• Multiple data sources are becoming the norm, and
reviewers are highly sensitized to over-reliance on a limited
subset of data collected
Data table from Russell, Cristel and Hope Schau (2014) “When Narrative Brands End:
The Impact of Narrative Closure and Consumption Sociality on Loss Accommodation,”
Journal of Consumer Research 40, 1039-1062.
Levels of analysis vary… and matter
• Much early work focused on the individual, and with
phenomenological insights on their lived experience.
• Then came communities, tribes, collectives …
• Increasing attention is being paid to market, brand,
family levels of analysis
• Even national/regional levels of analysis
– E.g. Karababa,E. and G Ger (2011) Early modern Ottoman
coffeehouse culture and the formation of the consumer
subjectJournal of Consumer Research 37 (5), 737-760
Levels of analysis other than the individual level
spark different kinds of research questions, which
will often require different kinds of data (do you need
consumer interviews?), and different approaches to
analysis (how relevant is a phenomenological
approach??)
And even for studies at the individual
level, there are increasing calls to take
more fully into account socio-cultural
context … which may require additional
sources of data
see Askegaard, S., & Linnet, J. T. (2011). Towards an epistemology of
consumer culture theory: Phenomenology and the context of context.
Marketing Theory, 11(4), 381–404.
Theory building practice evolving
Previously
• Thompson et al (1989)
advocated thematic
describing
• Spiggle (1994) advocated (1)
abstracting grounded
constructs (2) relating those
constructs to each other (3)
thematic descrbing and
(4)deciphering cultural
codes
Now
Theory building now:
Eileen’s three “E”s
• Emergent, Enabled, Enriching Theorizing
– Emergent theorizing is akin to grounded theorizing
… but with some differences
– Enabled theorizing draws on an extant enabling
theory to build new theory regarding a
phenomenon of interest
– Enriching theorizing contributes by refining an
extant theory
• Examples of each follow
Emergent theorizing
• May inductively identify
constructs and relationships
as advocated in grounded
theorizing (cf Spiggle 1994)
• More often draws on a
combination of logical
argumentation, prior
research and prior theory to
argue the existence of a
neglected construct … then
• “Maps” the construct, its
antecedents and/or its
implications
e.g. Russell & Levy (2012) JCR
Enabled Theorizing
• Probably the most common in
JCR and JM now
• Explicitly uses a reasonably
well-developed theory such as
practice theory, institutional
theory, etc
• Applies it to develop theory
explaining phenomenon of
interest in our field
• A variant: implicitly adopts
extant theory – uses
vocabulary but stops short of
explicitly invoking theory as a
whole
e.g. Martin and Schouten 2014
Enriching Theorizing
e.g. Ustuner & Thompson 2012 JCR
• Identifies a major theory
used frequently to explain
consumption/marketing
phenomenon
• “Enriches” it by amending it
• Often positioned as
updating “old” theory in
light of unforeseen
sociocultural contexts or
dynamics
Implications
• Data
– Safer to collect more data than was once common
– Advantages to diversifying types of data included
• Level of analysis
– Explicitly identify the level of analysis you’re working at
– Match data, analytic techniques to the research questions that you are
asking at that level of analysis
• Theorizing
– Go beyond thematic describing or “classical”grounded theorizing
– When doing emergent theorizing, don’t restrict yourself to inductive
identification of constructs from data analysis
– Be attuned to the option of using enabling theory to build theory, or
engaging in enriching theorizing
• And be mindful of “best practices” specific to the journals you are
targeting!
Other tips for qualitative researchers
trying to target JCR
• Find 2-3 exemplar articles that you will model
your work on
– Pick ones that within the last 2-3 years
– Pick ones that working at the same level of
analysis as you are
– Pick at least one that takes the same approach to
theorizing as suits you: emergent, enabled, or
enriching
• What parts of these articles should you
analyze for possible emulation?
Consider emulating/adapting to suit
your purposes
• Introductory paragraphs: how does the paper
introduce and justify what if focuses on
• Literature review: how is it organized? Where
does it appear?
• Introduction of theory/concepts that you are
drawing on: where? Rationalized how? How
much detail?
• Context setting: where? What kinds of
referencing? How much detail (page length?)
Also consider emulating/adapting
• Organization of findings: structured to
address research questions? If not, how? How
much are references to previous consumer or
marketing research studies “stitched in”?
• Contents of discussion section: how much
space devoted to summarizing? How does it
introduce valued added content beyond the
findings section?