Message from the President: May 2026

Marketing research, like all science, builds on what came before. But that only works if prior findings can be trusted, understood, and reproduced. In recent years, researchers across disciplines have taken a closer look at how often studies can be verified. The answer is, well,… mixed.

In many cases, results can be reproduced when data and code are available. The catch? Those materials are often hard to access in the first place. This isn’t surprising in marketing, where studies frequently rely on proprietary datasets or sensitive information. Still, limited transparency makes it harder for others to check results, learn from them, and move the field forward.

Transparency matters! Clear documentation, accessible code, and thoughtful sharing practices can go a long way in making research more useful and impactful—even when the data itself cannot be fully shared. For proprietary data, for instance, code can still be shared and run on simulated data or subsets of the original dataset.

The AMS has taken steps to strengthen transparency expectations for JAMS (and AMS Review) through a new policy on data access and code sharing (https://www.ams-web.org/data-policy). The goal is not to add burden, but to make it easier for others to understand, verify, and build on published work – and ultimately to help new ideas take hold and thrive.

I am particularly looking forward to seeing these ideas come to life at the upcoming Annual Conference in Savannah, GA (https://www.ams-web.org/annual-conference) and the World Marketing Congress in Vilnius (https://www.ams-web.org/world-marketing-congress). If you haven’t registered yet, now is a perfect time!

Marko Sarstedt
President of the Academy of Marketing Science