Content analysis of the empirical research on IMC from 2000 to 2015

摘要

The overall objective of this paper is to build upon previous empirical research into integrated marketing communications (IMC) and to provide guidelines for future research. A total of 80 empirical studies on IMC published between 2000 and 2015 are examined and systematically presented and discussed. IMC implementation, impact, perception, measurement and its relationship with tech nology emerge as five main research topics. Researchers seem to prefer quantitative research over qualitative and descriptive statistics analysis over more elaborated techniques. Europe is established as the top IMC research region, followed by America and Asia. Communication, education, retailing and tourism are the most frequently examined sectors, mostly approached from the managers' perspective. Owing to the fact that only a limited number of journal articles are reviewed, this contribution only offers a snapshot of the research field. However, the paper enables academics to discover possible directions for future IMC research. This work makes a novel contribution as it provides the first attempt to identify the emerging research on IMC in the last 15 years by presenting systematically 80 empirical studies according to their research objectives, implemented methods and data analyses, examined samples or units of analysis, covered geographical areas and sectors and, finally, research findings.