Commentary on “The Essence of Business Marketing Theory, Research and Tactics: Contributions by the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing,” by Lichtenthal, Mummalaneni, and Wilson

ABSTRACT

Licthenthal, Mummalaneni, and Wilson's (LMW) insights and review of the JBBM literature fulfills its objectives in describing the rich value and positioning of the journal and in increasing readers' knowledge of the scholarly contributions that its first thirteen years of publication provide. Such retrospection is timely and valuable for achieving useful sense-making about JBBM's role in providing new knowledge about business-to-business behavior. LMW's literature review and discussion of retrospections by other editors of marketing-related journals serves well in defining the JBBM's uniqueness, value, and relatedness to these other scholarly publications. The appendix in LMW provides a rich introduction of reasonable depth to the very substantial article contributions available in the JBBM. The rich details in the appendix in covering research issues, theory, method, findings, and contributions for each article published in the journal offer business marketing scholars, trainers (instructors), and executives a highly valuable digest and intellectual map for most topics relating to business marketing. This commentary serves to emphasize several propositions that follow from reading these JBMM contributions—propositions that may be helpful for the next generation of scholars working on business-to-business research topics.

KEYWORDS:

• Relationships
• theory
• direct observation
• conscious
• unconscious
• mental models