Bridging the Theory-Practice Gap in Business Marketing: Lessons from the Field—The JBBM at 21

ABSTRACT: Purpose: The purpose of this article is to first examine the distinctive role that Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing (JBBM) assumes in the marketing discipline, explore its heritage and notable accomplishments, and highlight the opportunities and challenges that specialized business journals confront across functional areas. Next, the authors explored the academic-practitioner divide and propose action steps that can be followed to craft corporate research partnerships to address business marketing problems. Methodology/approach: The authors drew on research experience gained across more than a dozen empirical studies that have been used in a collaborative approach with a partner firm from the business-to-business sector to examine a core marketing problem. Findings: High levels of engagement and support from the partner organization appear to be most likely to occur when members of the partnering firm were actively involved in framing the research question. Research implications: A set of action steps is proposed as a vehicle for initiating and managing a corporate research partnership. By providing potential access to rare data, a collaborative approach may provide a path for attacking substantive research issues in business marketing.