Philip A. Titus

The Consumer Retail Search Process: A Conceptual Model and Research Agenda

Consumers are continually faced with the task of finding their way through a wide variety of retail environments. Surprisingly, very little research has addressed questions about how consumers physically search through retail settings. This article explores this important, yet little researched behavior. A conceptual model of the consumer’s retail search process (CRSP) and several research propositions are advanced. The CRSP model integrates research findings relevant to an understanding of consumer retail search behavior. Literature from such diverse fields of scientific inquiry as environmental psychology, human factors, architecture, and marketing are reviewed and serve as the theoretical basis of the CRSP model.

Marketing and the Creative Problem-Solving Process

In the aggregate, marketing may be conceptualized as the process of offering creative solutions to consumer problems. As such, educational emphasis should be given to increasing students’ knowledge of the creative problem-solving (CPS) process. Unfortunately, past research has given little attention to the CPS process itself. The purpose of this article is to better familiarize marketing educators with the CPS process and its connection to marketing practice. In addition, an instructional approach is offered that employs the use of assorted CPS techniques in conjunction with different stages of the CPS process.

Consumer wayfinding tasks, strategies, and errors: An exploratory field study

A significant portion of the consumers in-store shopping experience is spent searching for desired products in complex shopping environments. Surprisingly, past research has largely overlooked this important behavior. The authors attempt to rectify this situation by reporting the findings of an extensive exploratory investigation of consumer in-store wayfinding, or search behavior. The study was conducted in the field, on the premises of a suburban supermarket. The main thrust of the research was descriptive, aimed at uncovering the basic mechanisms that direct the consumers use of in-store navigational search strategies.

Applied Creativity: The Creative Marketing Breakthrough Model

Despite the increasing importance of personal creativity in todays business environment, few conceptual creativity frameworks have been presented in the marketing education literature. The purpose of this article is to advance the integration of creativity instruction into marketing classrooms by presenting an applied creative marketing framework. The theoretical basis for the creativity framework, referred to as the creative marketing breakthrough model, is discussed along with its pedagogical implications for marketing education. Furthermore, an illustrated instructional example is provided to highlight the impact of the creative marketing breakthrough model constructs on individual creative performance.

The consumer-environment interaction: An introduction to the special issue

Abstract This article introduces the five papers presented in this special issue of the International Journal of Research in Marketing that focuses on consumer behavior and the environment. A model of the interaction between consumer cognition, behavior and the physical-tangible environment is developed, and the location of each of the papers in the model is indicated. The model combines a classification of the environment with insights in the interactions between consumers and the environment. Scales of the environment, micro, meso and macro, and aspects of the environment, tangible and intangible, are distinguished. Eight types of interactions between cognition, behavior and the environment are specified on the basis of reciprocal determinism theory and notions from environmental psychology. Based on the model, directions for future research in marketing on the interactions between consumers and the physical-tangible environment are formulated at the conclusion.

Guiding Reflective Practice: An Auditing Framework to Assess Teaching Philosophy and Style.

Growing as an educator takes hard work and commitment. It requires the educator to engage in regular, objective self-examinations of instructional beliefs and behaviors. Although this task can be daunting, and unwieldy, due to the complexity of the teaching—learning exchange, it can also be undertaken in a systematic manner. This article proposes a framework of five elements that appear essential for assessing instructor beliefs and behaviors: content, learner, educator, social setting, and physical environment where the instruction takes place. A teaching-style audit is demonstrated to show how the systematic and thoughtful assessment of an educator’s teaching philosophy and style can be undertaken. This research contributes to the professional development of marketing educators by (a) providing a unifying framework to guide reflective teaching practice and (b) proposing that an auditing approach should be used to reveal incomplete or underdeveloped areas of instructional belief and identify inconsistent or incongruent teaching styles.

Comparing Marketing and Non-Business Students’ Choice of Academic Field of Study

This manuscript presents the results of a study that investigates the differences between marketing and non-business college students’ decision making process when deciding on a field of study. The results reveal that while there are a number of differences in the some areas of the process, the students in both groups have some interesting similarities. This information may be helpful to marketing educators when trying to recruit students who are also interested in non-business fields of study.