
Dr Aliakbar Jafari
Reader
Marketing
Area of Expertise
- Executive Education
- Marketing strategy
- Branding
- Market formation and transformation
- Consumption cultures
- Intersections of markets and religions/spiritualities
- Interpretive research methods
Prize And Awards
Publications
Research Interests
I study markets primarily as socioculturally embedded contexts in which multiple formal and informal institutions and their actors interact, values and systems of meanings are (re)created, and diverse practices, processes, and offerings (i.e., products and services) are (re)shaped. From this perspective, my research interests include a variety of topics all of which rotate around the concept of market dynamism. These topics include branding practices and strategies, organisational change in response to internal and external triggers, conflicts and resolutions in multicultural marketplaces, marketplace resistance and opposition, politics and policies of consumption; consumer networks and movements, postcolonial approaches to the study of market phenomena (e.g., production, distribution, promotion, consumption, and disposal of products and services), and the intersections of the market, religions and spiritualities. In my research, I employ various qualitative approaches such as ethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, historical analysis, case study, and action research, using depth interviews, focus groups, observations, archival data, and visual analysis. I have served different international conferences (e.g., Transformative Consumer Research, Macromarketing, and International Society for Markets and Development) as Track Chair and as, an invited speaker, has delivered talks to various high profile industry and policy audiences across Europe and Asia.