Consumer Behavior: New Essays on the Study of Consumption(Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research)

Consumer Behavior presents an autobiographical view of Morris B. Holbrook’s contributions to the study of consumer behavior, describing his life and work over the past 60 years via a collection of subjective personal introspective essays. This new collection extends, enlarges, and elaborates on the insights garnered over Holbrook’s career to provide a lively and thought-provoking exploration of the evolution of consumer research. Using Subjective Personal Introspection (SPI), Holbrook shares aspects of his own journey in developing insights into such topics as the consumption experience, consumer value, the jazz metaphor, marketing education, and various controversies that have interested the scholarly community. Early chapters portray Holbrook’s evolution in college, graduate school, and faculty membership, while later chapters trace his approaches to understanding the role of consumption as the essence of the human condition. Throughout, SPI is used to illuminate the ways in which academic struggles have led toward deeper understandings of consumers. Readers with an interest in the autobiographical details of how ideas develop and emerge in an area such as consumer research – including doctoral students or faculty members in the field of marketing – will find enlightenment and inspiration in contemplating the (mis)adventures of a fellow traveler.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Some Autobiographical Sketches 1. Morris B. Holbrook: An Introduction 2. Morris B. Holbrook: An Historical Autoethnographic Subjective Personal Introspection 3. Morris the Cat or the Wolf-Man on the Upper West Side: Animal Metaphors and Me Part II: Some Comments on the Consumption Experience 4. Essay on the Origins, Development, and Future of the Consumption Experience as a Concept in Marketing and Consumer Research 5. Consumption Experiences in the Arts Part III: Some Theoretical and Methodological Considerations Concerning Consumer Value 6. Commentary: Consumption Experiences, Consumer Value, Subjective Personal Introspection, the Photographic Essay, and Semiological/Hermeneutic Interpretation 7. The Concept of Consumer Value: Its Development, Implications, and Trajectory 8. Consumption Criteria in Arts Marketing Part IV: Some Perspectives from Jazz 9. The Marketing Manager as a Jazz Musician 10. Reflections on Jazz Training and Marketing Education: What Makes a Great Teacher? Part V: Some Criticisms, Cavils, Complaints, and Controversies 11. The Greedy Bastard’s Guide to Business 12. What For Art Thou, Marketing? 13. A Subjective Personal Introspective Essay on the Evolution of Business Schools, the Fate of Marketing Education, and Aspirations toward a Great Society

About the Author :
Morris B. Holbrook is now-retired W. T. Dillard Professor Emeritus of Marketing, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, New York City. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Harvard College (English Literature) in 1965, his MBA from Columbia University in 1967, and his PhD in Marketing from Columbia in 1975. From 1975 to 2009, he taught courses at the Columbia Business School in such areas as sales management, marketing strategy, research methods, consumer behavior, and commercial communication in the culture of consumption. His research has covered a wide variety of topics in marketing and consumer behavior with a special focus on issues related to communication in general and to aesthetics, semiotics, hermeneutics, art, entertainment, music, jazz, motion pictures, nostalgia, and stereography in particular.