Submission Deadline: July 25, 2011

Marketing has for decades promulgated the importance of a single minded focus on the customer as key to capturing value from the marketplace. The widespread adoption of this strategic principle has lead to competitive parity in terms of pay-offs. Firms have also been buffeted by changes in the marketplace in which they operate. These changes include the growth of social media and the increasing societal expectations of business to move beyond a shareholder focus to a broader societal focus. Calls to deliver to the triple bottom line have grown. Firms have begun to respond to this call by introducing product and service offerings and changing marketing practices to deliver social impact as well as profits with varying degrees of success. Consumer and societal perceptions of firm actions have covered the range from skepticism to cynicism to excitement aided and abetted by social media. Firms attempting to deliver social impact through multiple stakeholders have faced numerous organizational challenges. Metrics to measure social impact has begun to emerge along with methods to capture, interpret and understand multiple relevant stakeholder expectations. Consequently, the context that firms have to operate under calls for new theory, new research and new pedagogical methods in marketing. It is against this backdrop, that "Seeing Marketing Through Emerging Theoretical Lenses: A Focus on Marketing's Organizational and Societal Roles" is the theme of the AMA 2012 Winter Marketing Educators’ Conference scheduled for February 17-19, 2012 in Tampa, Florida.

In selecting track chairs and in creating highlighted sessions in this conference, we have tried to draw on academics from across the globe whose thought leading work has been published in, and therefore has shaped, the leading journals of the field, including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research and Marketing Science. We hope that researchers in the field of marketing will submit their best and most theoretically relevant research for this conference.

Because the Winter Educators' Conference is, in general, an important forum for research, intellectual exchange, professional development, and networking with colleagues from around the world, our goal is to create a program that offers topics covering a wide range of marketing issues. We encourage participants to submit their best work, whether it is empirical, conceptual, or applied. We also seek innovative and meaningful special session proposals that seek to expand the boundary of current marketing theory and practice.