FRIDAY 27 JUNE, 1:30PM location: BUSH HOUSE auditorium
Moderator: Eileen Fischer
Dr. Eileen Fischer is a Professor of Marketing and the Anne & Max Tanenbaum Chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the Schulich School of Business, York University, where she also serves as Associate Dean of Research. A leading scholar in marketing, entrepreneurship, and international business, she is renowned for her contributions to qualitative research methodology and has published widely in top journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Academy of Management Review.
Professor Fischer has taught qualitative research methods to doctoral students for over 30 years and co-authored a textbook on the subject. She has held leadership roles in major academic communities, including serving as President of both the Consumer Culture Theory Consortium and the Association for Consumer Research. In recognition of her outstanding academic contributions, she was named a University Professor at York in 2016 and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of St. Gallen in 2022, along with a Lifetime Research Achievement Award from her faculty.
Her research explores how consumers and entrepreneurs shape and respond to evolving markets, and how firms and brands emerge. She has also held honorary appointments at institutions such as the University of Melbourne and Bayes Business School in London.
Ashlee Humphreys, Editor, Marketing Letters
Professor Ashlee Humphreys is a sociologist who examines core topics in consumer behaviour and marketing strategy. She is the Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. She studies the role of institutions in markets and the influence of language on both consumer judgments of legitimacy and the broader process of legitimation. Her work appears in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing Research, and she is Associate Editor for the first two journals. Author of Social Media: Enduring Principles (Oxford, 2016) and a pioneer of automated text analysis in marketing, she has received honours including the Sidney J. Levy Award and designation as an MSI Scholar.
Finola Kerrigan, Editor, Marketing Theory
Finola Kerrigan is a Professor of Marketing at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham. She is an expert on marketing and consumer behaviour in film, visual arts and the wider cultural and creative industries, she combines qualitative and arts-based methods to explore topics such as branding, digital identity, and emerging technologies.
Finola’s work—funded by bodies including the ESRC, EPSRC and the British Academy—appears in leading international journals, and she is the author of Film Marketing. Beyond academia she has led consultancy projects for entertainment and fashion organisations worldwide, serves on the boards of the Academy of Marketing, the International Society of Markets and Development, and the Jasmin Vardimon Dance Company, and has held previous posts at University of the Arts London, King’s College London and the University of Hertfordshire.
Eric Arnould, Editor, International Journal of Research in Marketing
Eric J. Arnould is Senior Fellow at Aalto University School of Business and an economic anthropologist whose work bridges development, consumer culture theory, services marketing and marketing channels in emerging economies. Author of many scholarly articles in outlets such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing and Marketing Theory (Google h-index 61), he serves as Associate Editor for the International Journal of Research in Marketing and the Journal of Retailing. Eric’s career spans field research and consulting across West Africa, advisory work for organizations from USAID to Kraft Foods, and teaching appointments at universities in Europe, the U.S. and Australia. His ethnographic approach underpins influential work on service encounters, experiential consumption and fair-trade markets.
Giana Eckhardt, Editor, Journal of Consumer Research
Giana M. Eckhardt is Professor of Marketing and Vice Dean Engagement and Executive Education at King’s Business School, King’s College London, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. As a leading authority on consumer culture, ethics, branding, and the sharing economy, she publishes in Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Consumer Research, where she is also an Associate Editor.
She co-authored The Myth of the Ethical Consumer and co-edited the Handbook of the Sharing Economy. Her award-winning work is regularly featured in global media such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and the BBC, and she frequently speaks at venues ranging from the United Nations to Brand Week. Dr. Eckhardt teaches brand management to MBA and executive audiences and has secured research funding from the Australian Research Council, the Marketing Science Institute, and the British Academy of Management.
Verena Gruber, Section Editor for consumer ethics, Journal of Business Ethics
Verena Gruber is an Associate Professor of Marketing, whose research relates to consumption and sustainability. Verena Gruber has examined how individuals make sense of social and environmental aspects in their everyday lives in the way they choose products, embrace ethical lifestyles, or engage with nonprofit organizations.
She has also studied how marketing practices help or hinder environmental transitions, such as the role of advertising in shaping consumer perceptions or the influence of environmental impact measures on product choice. She has previously worked at HEC Montreal (Canada) and WU Vienna (Austria), where she received her habilitation venia docendi in 2015 and her doctoral degree in 2012.