“Business-to-Business-to-Brain?” Reviewing Neuroscience Research in B2B-Marketing Using TCCM Analysis

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Neuroscientific findings seem to call into question several psychological fundaments of research in B2B-Marketing. Neuroscience was also recently proposed as an important area for interdisciplinary research, potentially leading to the development of original, courageous ideas in B2B research. Neuroscience applications, guidelines, and future research directions have been discussed in various fields. In B2B marketing, there are calls for further research adopting neuroscience and an introduction to what B2B marketing could learn from it.

Methodology

We conducted a structured literature review on Scopus with 2,336 search results, identified 67 relevant publications, and analyzed them using the theory-context-characteristics-methodology (TCCM) framework.

Originality

An overview of the status quo of research that bridges both disciplines (neuroscience and B2B marketing) and directions for future research applying neuroscience in B2B is missing. With this article, we close this gap

Findings

Neuroscience in B2B is nascent, and most publications are conceptual. Some findings rooted in B2C could be transferred to B2B. Reflecting on B2B marketing research priorities, we outline five major future research directions for applying neuroscience in B2B: 1. decision-making, 2. marketing stimuli and responses, 3. digitalization, 4. research methods and measurements, 5. advancing existing knowledge. With this, we hope to help further improve the principal psychological underpinnings of B2B-Marketing.

KEYWORDS:

• Neuroscience
• neuromarketing
• B2B marketing
• industrial marketing
• systematic literature review
• TCCM

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Government [Agencia Estatal de Investigacion: PID2020-118425RB-I00], the Government of Aragon and the European Regional Development Fund (GENERES, Group S54).