Why practitioners don't read our articles and what we should do about it

This article questions the value of much academic marketing's 'top' journal literature. The argument made is that current strong pressures (driven by the RAE) to publish in journals that are dominated by positivistic approaches is damaging to both pure and applied academics. A detailed critique of some recent articles is used to highlight specific failings that, in this author's view, need to be urgently addressed. The paper concludes that a key role for applied academic marketing research is to provide a platform that allows managers to construct knowledge that is usually applied with their local context.