FIELD EXPERIMENTS IN MARKETING: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR ADDRESSING EXTERNAL VALIDITY AND ETHICAL CHALLENGES IN COLLABORATION WITH FIRMS
Main Article Content
Yeni Idayusi
Lukmanul Hakim
Dahrul Aman Harahap
This study examines the key challenges and emerging best practices in field experiments, with a particular focus on external validity, ethical concerns, and collaboration with firms. The findings reveal that external validity remains a major limitation, as many studies are context-dependent and confined to single firms or markets, reducing generalizability. Ethical issues, including lack of informed consent and heightened privacy risks in digital environments, emerge as the most critical concern, highlighting the need for stronger ethical frameworks and greater transparency. Collaboration with firms offers valuable opportunities but is often constrained by organizational resistance, data access limitations, and misaligned objectives. The analysis also identifies a gap between the severity of these challenges and the current level of best practice adoption. However, emerging approaches such as multi-site experimentation, transparent ethical protocols, and structured collaboration agreements show promise in addressing these issues. In addition, insights from measurement invariance research emphasize the importance of methodological rigor and improved reporting standards. Overall, the study proposes an integrated framework that balances methodological rigor, ethical responsibility, and practical feasibility. These findings provide actionable guidelines for researchers and practitioners to conduct more reliable, ethical, and impactful field experiments in marketing.
Adomako, S., & Tran, M. (2022). Environmental collaboration, responsible innovation, and firm performance: The moderating role of stakeholder pressure. Business Strategy and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2977
Boegershausen, J., Datta, H., Borah, A., & Stephen, A. T. (2022). Fields of Gold: Scraping Web Data for Marketing Insights. Journal of Marketing, 86(5), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221100750
Diener, E., Northcott, R., Zyphur, M., & West, S. (2022). Beyond Experiments. Perspectives on Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211037670
Favaretto, M., Clercq, E. De, Caplan, A., & Elger, B. (2023). United in Big Data? Exploring scholars’ opinions on academic-industry partnership and the use of corporate data in digital behavioral research. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280542
Fels, K. M. (2022). Who nudges whom? Expert opinions on behavioural field experiments with public partners. Behavioural Public Policy, 9(1), 212–248. https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2022.14
Gao, Y., Li, M., & Sun, S. (2023). Field experiments in operations management. Journal of Operations Management, 69(4), 676–701. https://doi.org/10.1002/joom.1240
Giglio, C., Corvello, V., Coniglio, I. M., Kraus, S., & Gast, J. (2025). Cooperation between large companies and start-ups: An overview of the current state of research. European Management Journal, 43(1), 142–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2023.08.002
Golder, P., Dekimpe, M., An, J., Heerde, H. V. van, Kim, D. S. U., & Alba, J. (2023). Learning from Data: An Empirics-First Approach to Relevant Knowledge Generation. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221129200
Goldfarb, A., Tucker, C., & Wang, Y. (2022). Conducting Research in Marketing with Quasi-Experiments. Journal of Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221082977
Gray, B., Purdy, J. M., & Ansari, S. (2022). Confronting Power Asymmetries in Partnerships to Address Grand Challenges. Organization Theory. https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877221098765
Iyer, K. N. S., Srivastava, P., & Srinivasan, M. (2023). Symbiotic association of resources and market-facing capabilities in supply chains as determinants of performance: a resource orchestration perspective. European Journal of Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm-04-2021-0290
Jensen, U. T., Helby Petersen, O., Jacobsen, C. B., Jessen Hansen, J. A., & Maroulis, S. (2022). Co-producing field experiments in public management research: a guide to enhanced research–practice collaboration. Public Management Review, 26(2), 293–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2083848
Lopez-Vergara, H. I., Yang, M., Weiss, N. H., Stamates, A., Spillane, N. S., & Ewing, S. W. F. (2021). The cultural equivalence of measurement in substance use research. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1037/pha0000512
Malodia, S., Dhir, A., Hasni, M. J. S., & Srivastava, S. (2023). Field experiments in marketing research: a systematic methodological review. European Journal of Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm-03-2022-0240
Mize, T. D., & Manago, B. (2022). The past, present, and future of experimental methods in the social sciences. Social Science Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2022.102799
Nordfält, J., & Ahlbom, C.-P. (2024). Utilising eye-tracking data in retailing field research: A practical guide. Journal of Retailing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2024.02.005
Otterbring, T., Viglia, G., Grazzini, L., & Das, G. (2023). Guest editorial: Favoring fieldwork makes marketing more meaningful. European Journal of Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm-07-2023-987
Polidoro Jr., F., Lampert, C. M., & Kim, M. (2022). External knowledge sourcing, knowledge spillovers, and internal collaboration: The effects of intrafirm linkages on firm‐university co‐authorship linkages. Strategic Management Journal, 43(13), 2742–2776. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3412
Rotolo, D., Camerani, R., Grassano, N., & Martin, B. R. (2022). Why do firms publish? A systematic literature review and a conceptual framework. Research Policy, 51(10), 104606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104606
Samuel, J., Zheng, Z., & Mookerjee, V. (2023). Task Characteristics and Incentives in Collaborative Problem Solving: Evidence from Three Field Experiments. Information Systems Research. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2021.0118
Straub, V. J., Burton, J. W., Geers, M., & Lorenz-Spreen, P. (2024). Public attitudes towards social media field experiments. Scientific Reports, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76948-z
Stremersch, S., Gonzalez, J., Valenti, A., & Villanueva, J. (2022). The value of context-specific studies for marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 51(1), 50–65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-022-00872-9
Wagner, M. W. (2023). Independence by permission. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adi2430
