Issues About Marketing Journals’ Special Issues

A special issue (SI) of an academic journal is a collection of articles on a specific research topic or theme, guest-edited by experts in the field. These SIs are becoming increasingly popular among marketing journals. Surprisingly, this group includes the discipline’s top-tier and top journals. But, what are the consequences of the profusion of SIs, particularly in marketing’s most prestigious/reputable journals? What are the disadvantages of SIs’ new incursion, and sometimes even dominance? In this paper, the author investigates the SIs published over the last five years (i.e., 2018-2022) in marketing’s top and top-tier journals. The aim of doing so is to draw attention to SI-related issues such as space allocation, intellect left to rot, command economy of ideas, over-fragmentation/specialization of marketing, and publication ethics