In April, proposals from three marketing doctoral students at the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business were recognized in the 2024 AMS Review-Sheth Foundation Annual Doctoral Competition for Conceptual Articles.
Manaswani Acharya and Diptikanta Panigrahi's proposals were two of the six winners for 2024, and Abhishek Nirjar's proposal was announced as a runner-up.
This competition is open to current and recently completed marketing doctoral students and encourages the students to identify and publish impactful conceptual ideas.
Winning this competition holds great meaning for Acharya.
"It lends credibility and recognition to my work," said Acharya, "and helps to establish me as an emerging scholar in the field of human-AI interaction in marketing. The exposure and visibility gained through this award will open opportunities for collaboration with other leading researchers and industry partners who may be interested in building upon or applying the insights from my work."
Acharya won for her proposal titled "Human touch in AI-enabled marketing: toward an integrative framework."
"The key focus of my research is on developing an integrative framework that explores how human elements, such as empathy, personalization, and emotional connection, can be effectively incorporated into AI-powered marketing strategies and technologies," said Acharya.
"What interests me most about this topic is the opportunity to bridge the gap between the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and the enduring human need for genuine, empathetic interactions," she said.
With the competition win and the notoriety that comes with it, Acharya is eager to continue the next steps of her research, including conducting a comprehensive literature review and designing empirical studies. However, there is one next step she is looking forward to the most.
"The most important step is certainly the guidance from my co-author Sreedhar Madhavaram," said Acharya. "Without his motivation, I wouldn't have come so far."
Nirjar was recognized as one of six runners-up in the competition for his proposal titled "Relationship Marketing Agility."
"Relationship marketing agility is an organization-level construct that can help firms manage various relationships with stakeholders and partner firms," said Nirjar.
Nirjar hopes the next steps of his research will include a scale to measure relationship marketing agility and an analysis of its impact on firm-level variables.
"Winning the award is a validation of the relevance of the concept," he said, "and it gives me confidence for pursuing further research in this direction."
Writer's Note: Diptikanta Panigrahi was invited to provide comments on this story but did not respond.