From August 9 to 11, the 2019 AMA Summer Academic Conference took place in Chicago. The theme of this year’s conference was “Marketing on Fire: Burning Questions, Hot New Methods, and Practical Ideas Worth Spreading.” Manfred Krafft represented the Marketing Center Muenster, but also served in different functions. For example, he attended the Editorial Review Board meetings of Journal of Interactive Marketing and Journal of Retailing, two of the most prestigious journals in the field of marketing. And, he attended “master classes” on machine learning and interaction effects. Master classes are a new concept at Summer AMA and aim at updating methodological skills of marketing scientists.

Additionally, Manfred Krafft presented a best paper award during the reception of the Sales Special Interest Group to Rushana Khusainova and Greg Marshall, both affiliated with Aston University (Ad de Jong and Nick Lee as additional co-authors could not attend). An article by these authors on sales force motivation had been selected as the best theoretical contribution to sales research, published in Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management in 2018 (see photos). In his laudation, professor Krafft described this article as a masterpiece of a conceptual contribution to the field of sales management research, and a must-read.

Last but not least, Summer AMA was a great opportunity to meet co-editors, co-authors and potential collaborators for future research. In particular, Manfred Krafft met with Rob Palmatier (University of Washington), Jonathan Zhang (Colorado), Sundar Bharadwaj (Emory University) and John Hulland (University of Georgia) to discuss several research initiatives.