From the Editor: Rational Choice as the Foundation of Behavioral Research in Marketing

Abstract

Welcome to the second issue of the Journal of Marketing Behavior (JMB), the new, peer-reviewed behavioral journal sponsored by the European Marketing Academy (EMAC). As noted at the outset of our first issue, “JMB seeks to become a premier scientific outlet for behavioral research in marketing that has relevant and interesting practical implications for decision makers, be they managers, policy makers, or consumers” (Wertenbroch 2015, p. 1). One way to contribute to that objective is to give room to academic thought leaders who raise, or comment on, important theoretical or substantive questions that are of interest to behavioral researchers in marketing and beyond — to provide perspectives on important aspects of behavioral research without necessarily offering their own primary empirical evidence. The second issue of JMB therefore continues to feature a mix of such perspectives articles with other, empirical work. JMB’s stated editorial aim is to target “theoretically grounded research that uncovers, describes, systematizes, and/or explains human behavior in the marketplace” (Wertenbroch 2015, p. 1). Our first issue featured a series of perspectives, anchored by Simonson (2015), on the accomplishments and the future of research on behavioral decision theory (BDT) and judgment and decision-making (JDM). Our second issue continues to examine the roots of research into human behavior in the marketplace. A target article by Barry Schwartz questions whether the very standard by which behavioral researchers assess the rationality of human behavior, expected utility maximization, is, in fact, an appropriate normative benchmark (Savage 1954; von Neumann and Morgenstern 1947). Schwartz raises three concerns with axiomatic views of rational choice as utility maximization — that epistemic uncertainty often

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