
ACR Conference 2021 - October 28 - 31, 2021
Submission Portal Call for Papers - downloadable pdf
This conference will be virtual. It will be a renewal of our community with a few new twists to spark conversations in service of professional growth and to benefit from our diversity. There will be both synchronous and asynchronous sessions to provoke intellectual exchange as well as to connect and expand our community such as with:
- Pre-conference Forums
- Special Sessions, Thematic Roundtables & Working Paper Sessions
- Film Festival
- Globe Trotting
- Colleague Confabs
- Newcomer Celebration
New this Year
- Colleague Confabs
- Globe Trotting
- Knowledge Forums—pre-conference
- Competitive Paper Roundtable Discussions
- Newcomer (Small Group) Meet & Greet
- Welcome Reception
- Closing Celebration
We believe this is a time for our field to consider how we can more fully engage with compelling problems to develop useful theories. It is our hope that ACR 2021 will be an opportunity for scholars across methodological approaches, paradigms, and research interests to congregate and focus on research questions that address what the world needs now.
Accordingly, we encourage submissions that embody the spirit of consumer research as informing and contributing pragmatic and innovative solutions to important issues in the world. We hope to see cutting-edge, multi-method, and interdisciplinary submissions reflecting this conference theme. We provide some examples below:
v Racism: A forum discussion including scholars from economics, psychology, and sociology to discuss how to promote anti-racism in research questions, research design, data collection, or representation of findings.
v Branding: A special session exploring the role of brands in times of crisis from different theoretical lenses.
v Climate Care: A special session or forum that explores opportunities for consumer research related to environmental issues and its influence on various areas such as marketplace experiences, rituals, or cognition and perception.
v Collaboration: A workshop bringing together academics and practitioners from for-profit or non-profit organizations to share best practices for developing long lasting and productive partnerships.
v Gender Identification: A special session or forum exploring the influences of gender identity on consumption.
v Methodology: A tutorial with scholars who have successfully published multi-method articles encouraging participants to embrace methodological triangulation.
v Privacy: A special session examining how consumers balance their own self-interests with the interests of others in contexts such as healthcare (e.g., contact tracing), civic engagement (e.g., getting out to vote), or personal technology (e.g., geolocation tracking).
v Protests: A special session that examines protest traditions and intended outcomes, including those related to marketplace or social issues.
v Self-care: A panel, special session, or forum that considers how individuals can more fully manage their personal and professional lives for productive outcomes.
v Wisdom: A knowledge forum, special session, or panel discussion that integrates a broader set of issues—environment, capitalism, social justice—that provides an opportunity to generate new insights.
These are just suggestions that we hope will inspire ACR members to embrace an ethos of innovation and pragmatism for crafting novel submissions for our time together in the Fall.
We look forward to welcoming you!
Your ACR 2021 Conference Co-Chairs,
Tonya | Anat | Matt |
Tonya Williams Bradford Paul Merage School of Business University of California, Irvine | Anat Keinan Questrom School of Business Boston University | Matt Thomson Ivey Business School Western University |
Submission Guidelines
Submission deadline: April 30, 2021 (11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time)
General Submission Guidelines All authors must adhere to the honor code and pay close attention to the submission procedures found here.
Competitive Papers Papers representing completed research and dealing with substantive, methodological, or theoretical consumer research issues are invited as Competitive Paper submissions. Submission of conceptual and review papers are also encouraged.
Special Sessions Special Sessions are limited to 75-minutes and provide opportunities to highlight topics of broad interest in consumer research. A special session should include three to four research (conceptual, review, empirical) paper presentations that represent a coherent set of papers. Consideration will be given to special sessions that explicitly address the conference theme.
Working Papers Submissions detailing ongoing research on substantive, theoretical, or methodological issues in consumer research are sought for the Working Paper sessions. This session provides the opportunity to present preliminary results and receive feedback and ideas from session attendees.
Knowledge Forums ACR 2021 will feature various types of 90-minute forums that are intended to foster diverse thinking and representation through panel discussions, roundtables, seminars, sets of short presentations, tutorials, or workshops. Contemporary topical knowledge forums will resonate with our conference theme. All ACR conference registrants are welcome to attend Knowledge Forums. Please note these Forums will be presented live throughout the month of October 2021.
Film Festival The 2021 ACR Conference Film Festival will continue the tradition of advancing videographic consumer research. We invite films that address the audiovisual character of consumer research phenomena or innovative film-based approaches that advance the field in new directions, but also submissions outside of these themes.
Globe Trotting This new submission category invites groups in geographic regions (e.g. scholars from Mumbai, colleagues residing along California’s Central Coast, researchers doing field work together in Uganda) to shine a spotlight on their region, focusing on what is unique to their area. Where other types of submissions should be explicitly linked to the conference theme, the very nature of this session is to draw attention to the beauty of our diversity and actively work towards inclusion by fostering awareness and understanding. Regional members will organize and host their 30-minute session, and all ACR attendees are welcome to attend.