Research Categories in Studying Customer Engagement

INTRODUCTION The term customer engagement, which most often refers to the customer’s increasingly active role either with regards to the customer’s emotional or cognitive involvement with brands, their behavioral manifestations beyond purchase in interaction with brands or their role in the value co-creation process, has been consolidated in the literature in the recent years as a relevant concept for the current marketing theory (Van Doorn et al., 2010; Vivek et al., 2012; Sawhney et al., 2005; Brodie et al., 2011) and the amount of attention consecrated to it has increased significantly (Brodie et al., 2013; Verhoef et al., 2010; Gambetti & Graffigna, 2010). The Marketing Science Institute emphasized customer engagement as a research priority in its Guide for research 2010-2012 (MSI, 2010). The concept has also been substantially adopted among practitioners (Gallup, 2001; EIU, 2007; Sashi, 2012; Roberts & Alpert, 2010). Contexts in which it has been applied, range from social networks to value cocreation paradigm, media consumption, consumer experience, loyalty programs, customer relationship management, brand performance, involvement in product development, service marketing, consumer behavior and others. The broad and popular usage of the concept also created certain confusion and ambiguity around it (Brodie et al., 2011; Gambetti et al., 2011; Mandelli & Accoto, 2012). The body of research related to it lacks consistency and common understanding, which represents an obstacle for the concept’s development. The marketing field has witnessed numerous attempts of customer engagement conceptualization and thanks to these studies the understanding of the phenomenon has developed significantly, however a general consensus has not been yet reached. This continues to represent a disadvantage for the concept’s studies as it is applied in too many different areas, which consequently makes it difficult to adopt one umbrella definition without disregarding certain substantive dimensions. Instead of yet another conceptualization, this paper rather proposes that future studies should be placed within specific research streams which can further offer a solution for specifying the concept without compromising its richness. For that purpose, we suggest a) a categorization of customer engagement in four research directions which we built upon the study done by Brodie et al. (2011) and b) situating upcoming studies within these directions. Based on our systematic literature review, on the previous conceptual and empirical studies and on the categorization of customer engagement elaborated by Brodie et al. (2011), we propose that following these research directions would consolidate this increasingly popular concept, reduce its ambiguity and increase its value for the marketing theory in terms of understanding the active role of customers.