The exploration-exploitation tradeoff and efficiency in knowledge production

Abstract

Marketing Science is in a very healthy state as the premier journal for quantitative research in marketing. Since its inception, it has led the way in bringing novel and innovative methodologies and expanding into new substantive areas of inquiry. The journal is now at the cusp of its next stage of creativity and innovation. I outline new research possibilities due to big data, behavioral field studies, and managerial interest in substantive areas such as health, sustainability, emerging markets, innovation, and entrepreneurship. As quantitative marketing’s leading journal, Marketing Science should aid the field in the efficient production of in-depth, valid, current, and relevant knowledge across the breadth of the discipline. To this end, I will actively manage incentives for exploitation and deepening of existing competencies in established areas while supporting exploration and broadening into newer, riskier topics at Marketing Science. To increase the field’s overall efficiency of knowledge production, I suggest a lexicographic approach to reviewing where the incremental contribution threshold is primary and demands on quality of execution be driven by what is needed for proving the validity of the incremental contribution claims.