Retailing academics and practitioners must develop close, collaborative relationships, which might involve various, meaningful efforts to assist the other side of the collaboration while also furthering their own respective objectives. Only through such collaborations can retailing ensure sufficient research rigor and relevance to advance the field and expand its reach to nonacademic audiences. To achieve some innovative insights on why and how academics and practitioners can work together, a thought leadership conference was organized at the Walton College of Business (University of Arkansas), and one of its key outcomes is this special issue. All the entries in this special issue were crafted by teams of academics and practitioners, working together to describe new frontiers in retailing. They worked collaboratively for more than a year on topical, timely, relevant topics for today’s technology-based era. The meaningful results should provide inspiration for more collaborations, pursued by both sides, with the support of university administrators and corporate executive leadership. Without the support of both, bridging the gap between research and practice is not possible.

零售学者和从业人员必须建立紧密的协作关系，这可能涉及各种有意义的努力，以协助协作的另一端，同时也要实现各自的目标。只有通过这样的合作，零售才能确保足够的研究严格性和相关性，以推动该领域的发展并扩大其对非学术受众的影响。为了获得有关学者和实践者如何以及如何合作的一些创新见解，在沃尔顿商学院（阿肯色大学）组织了一次思想领袖会议，其主要成果之一就是本期特刊。本期特刊的所有条目均由学者和从业人员团队精心制作，共同描述零售业的新领域。他们在当今基于技术的时代就主题，及时，相关主题进行了一年多的合作。有意义的结果应该为双方在大学行政人员和企业高管领导层的支持下开展更多的合作提供灵感。没有双方的支持，就不可能弥合研究与实践之间的鸿沟。