Neuroscience in business-to-business marketing research: A literature review, co-citation analysis and research agenda

Neuroscience has led the way in bridging the gap between the social and natural sciences. The ongoing transformations in the business landscape have brought human-machine interaction and multi-agent systems to the forefront. This underscores the importance of theories that bridge the gap between human brain processes and business-to-business marketing practices. Despite the potential of neuroscience in business-to-business marketing, such interdisciplinary research is extensively lacking. This paper employs systematic literature reviews and co-citation analyses to: a) establish the absence of business-to-business marketing-neuroscience research; b) investigate the ways in which the broader business and management discipline has bridged with neuroscience to inspire such integration between business-to-business marketing and neuroscience; c) describe bridging approaches; and d) propose a research agenda for business-to-business marketing. The co-citation analyses show that the business and management discipline has focused on the 'within-brain' or behavioural aspects of neuroscience. In addition, the discipline has continually integrated new neuroscience insights or increasingly developed theories that are internalised within the discipline, independent of neuroscience. The paper's main contributions are the reviews and co-citation analyses, as well as an account of bridging in interdisciplinary research. Furthermore, the proposed research agenda enhances our understanding of the potential of neuroscience in business-to-business marketing.

Automated summary

Neuroscience has played a crucial role in bridging the gap between the social and natural sciences, but there is a lack of interdisciplinary research in business-to-business marketing. This paper uses literature reviews and co-citation analyses to show the absence of research in this field and proposes a research agenda to foster integration between business-to-business marketing and neuroscience.