This paper clarifies why context-specific studies have scientific merit and provides recommendations to authors and journal stewards on how to develop them well. A context-specific study is a study in a unique setting yielding conclusions that can be considered to have limited generalizability to other settings. A firm’s industry—think of pharmaceuticals, video games, movies, platform markets, sharing economy—may represent an unambiguous example of a specific context. Unfortunately, the generalizability-specificity dilemma is often misunderstood. Generalizability is excessively heralded as the ideal, and studies in specific contexts are too often denigrated, while both intrinsically can be valuable to the advancement of knowledge. The present paper aims to (1) provide a more nuanced system of beliefs for marketing scholarship to adopt in favor of specificity; (2) offer a helping hand to authors and editors when developing and publishing context-specific studies; (3) review successful examples from the prior literature; and (4) offer clear implications for scholars.

本文阐明了为什么特定于上下文研究具有科学价值，并为作者和期刊管理者提供如何发展它们的建议。特定背景研究是在独特环境中得出结论的研究，这些结论可以被认为对其他环境的普遍性有限。一家公司的行业——想想制药、视频游戏、电影、平台市场、共享经济——可能代表了特定背景的明确示例。不幸的是，普遍性-特异性困境经常被误解。普遍性被过度宣传为理想，而在特定背景下的研究经常被贬低，而两者本质上都对知识的进步很有价值。本文旨在 (1) 为营销学术提供更细致入微的信念系统，以支持特异性；(2) 在开发和出版特定情境的研究时向作者和编辑提供帮助；(3) 回顾以往文献中的成功案例；(4) 为学者提供明确的启示。