Revisiting the Family Tree: Historical and Future Consumer Behavior Research

Academy of Marketing Science Review, 2003 by M, Karin

Karin M. Ekstrom is associate professor at the School of Economics and Commercial Law at Goteborg University, Sweden and director of the Center for Consumer Science (CFK), Box 600, 405 30 Goteborg, Sweden, 46-31-7731480, karin.ekstrom@cfk.gu.se The author would like to thank the editor, the anonymous reviewers, Russell W. Belk, James W. Gentry, Lennart Hast, and Thomas C. O'Guinn for their valuable comments, Carina Holmberg for contribution to an earlier draft of this paper, and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation for funding this project. Also, in reference to the topic of study, the author would like to express her appreciation to the Association for Consumer Research, their conferences and newsletters, which have made her feel part of a family of consumer researchers at times when there have been relatively few consumer researchers in Sweden.

One of the problems facing the field of contemporary consumer behavior research is similar to how children, especially teenagers, going through an identity crisis might feel - they are not sure where they came from, why, and certainly not where they are going. They are unsure why parts of their family don't interact with the other, why they may not play with their positivist/interpretivist cousins, visit their skeptical cognitive uncle, or their suspiciously semiotic aunt. Their identity, as well as consumer behavior researchers' scholarly location, is believed to be affected by an understanding of family history. An awareness of the past will help themunderstand their family better - who their family members are, how relations of different strength and character have been formed over time, and what has kept the family together or separated. Historical knowledge will also be useful when thinking of future consumer behavior research.

While a comprehensive genealogy is beyond the scope of this paper, the family metaphor might help to describe key moments, developments, breaks, and reconciliations in the development of consumer behavior as a field of study and to illustrate how consumer behavior researchers act and interact (or not). Its contribution is to provide disciplinary geography and to make the dynamic development of consumer behavior and the relations to our research "family" (or families) to a topic for discussion and reflection. By studying the key moments in the genealogy of consumer behavior, we will better recognize sources of inspiration, sources of schism, and perhaps paths to meaningful reunion.

We are born or married into a family, just as we as researchers are thrust or introduced into a family of researchers, by choosing a particular research orientation when starting Ph.D. studies or when working on joint research projects. To be part of a family involves moments of happiness as well as moments of anxiety. The perception of whether something is good or bad and strategies for dealing with different situations differs among family members, just as it differs among researchers. I believe that family problems should be brought out into the open. Vigorous discussions around the family dinner table are favored over asking individual family members to be quiet or sending them for therapy. Some family members may find the tone of voice a bit offensive. The aim is, however, to be thought provoking, challenging, and to stimulate discussion of consumer research for the future.

This paper is organized as follows: First, the family metaphor is situated and applied to illustrate processes and aspects of academic life, primarily although not necessarily limited to research in consumer behavior. A review of key historical familial disciplinary moments is then offered building on previous researchers' (Arndt 1986; Belk 1995) reflections as well as additional literature reviews. Recent developments, new versus old perspectives, and paradigm shifts are of special interest for understanding today's situation. The family metaphor is then extended to the history of our consumer behavior research family. The last section deals with the family's future, involving inquiries on how research is to be conducted, what will drive the research questions, for whom research will be conducted, and how to keep the family together, etc. The answers are expressed in family terms and rhetoric and are likely to depend on the definition of our family and field of study.

THE FAMILY METAPHOR

Metaphors are common among humans, even social scientists. "Metaphor is the backbone of social science writing. Like the spine, it bears weight, permits movement, is buried beneath the surface, and links parts together into a functional, coherent whole" (Richardson 1994, p.519). Metaphors are used to describe something in terms of something else. By comparison or analogy, metaphors allow us to make the implicit more explicit and understandable. By using a metaphor, it is possible to transfer meaning and structured knowledge from a familiar to a novel domain (Gregan-Paxton 1998). Metaphors can also develop the researcher's imagination and thus contribute to research (Goodwin 1996, p.31). Zaltman (1997, p.425) discusses how metaphors can be used as a research method as a means of finding hidden thoughts and feelings and stresses: "without metaphors we cannot imagine: they are the engines of imagination." It is important that a metaphor covers many different aspects of the particular phenomenon studied and that the metaphor is not contradictory in itself. Of course, a metaphor may be able to explain specific aspects of a phenomenon, but not all aspects (Goodwin 1996; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Cultural values are coherent with metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) and should also be considered when choosing a metaphor.