ACRA 2025 Univ of South Carolina: American Collegiate Retailing Association 2025 University of South Carolina University of South Carolina Columbia, SC, United States, March 12-14, 2025 |
| Conference website | https://acraretail.org/ |
| Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=acra2025univofsouthc |
| Abstract registration deadline | November 30, 2024 |
| Submission deadline | November 30, 2024 |
The 2025 American Collegiate Retailing Association Conference brings together academics in retailing, fashion, marketing, and supply chain to coalesce the ideas of experts in these areas. This call includes guidelines for submissions of research papers (full and extended abstract) and workshops/special sessions. The 2025 ACRA Conference will be hosted by the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC on March 12-14, 2025.
The 2025 ACRA Conference will be held on campus at the University of South Carolina in the College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management. Founded in 1985, the Department of Retailing offers a Bachelors of Science in Retailing and a Master of Retail Innovation as part of its academic programs. The Department of Retailing faculty and students are proud to manage the University of South Carolina’s Apple® Authorized Campus Store — Gamecock iHub. https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/hrsm/for_the_community/gamecock-ihub/
The store is the first of its kind in the region and only the second in the nation to incorporate student experiential learning into its business model. Faculty who attend the ACRA conference will be able to tour the on-campus iHub. In addition, we are working with our industry partners to facilitate possible corporate site visits or host key executive partners on campus. More information to follow in the coming months. The awards dinner will be held at The Market @ 701 Whaley, a unique event space in the Columbia area. https://701whaley.com/market/
The deadline for all submissions is October 31, 2024. This is a firm deadline that will not be extended. Review decisions will be announced by the end of December, 2024. All submissions must be via the ACRA2025 Site at: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=acra2025univofsouthc
All submissions will be peer-reviewed, and we welcome submissions for:
1) Extended Abstracts,
2) Competitive (Full) Papers, and
3) Workshop/Special Sessions.
Conference Proceedings that include only abstracts will be available for participants after the conference is complete. All authors with submissions who wish to be included in the proceedings must include a separate abstract (up to 150 total words) for inclusion as part of their submission. This process is the same for those submitting extended abstracts as well. Only the 150-word abstracts will be included in the final conference proceedings. All submissions will be included as part of the conference proceedings unless the authors decline inclusion.
BEST PAPER AWARDS
ACRA will present the following awards (for full papers) at the conference:
- Overall best research paper and a runner-up
- Best graduate student paper and a runner-up (Note: The first author of this paper must be a graduate student and must register to attend the conference)
The authors of the overall best research paper, the best graduate student paper, and the two runner-up papers will receive monetary prizes and will be recognized at the conference.
Submission Guidelines
All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:
Extended Abstract Submission Guidelines
- Extended abstracts are 2-5 pages of research summaries (exclusive of title page and references). There is a strict 2-page minimum and a 5-page maximum (double-spaced) with font 11, 1-inch margin of all sides on a portrait page.
- Please submit two separate files: a) Title page (containing all author details including contact information); b) The Main Body (containing the title and the extended abstract without any identifying information).
- Please include the paper title and contact information of all authors on the title page. Submit your abstract in pdf format via Easy Chair.
- The style guide for this submission is 7th edition APA.
- At least one author must register and attend the conference.
- A selected panel will review the submissions. For inquiries regarding extended abstracts, please contact the conference chairs.
Competitive (Full Paper) Submission Guidelines
- Competitive papers are full papers (Title Page + Main Body).
- On the “Title Page” document, provide all author details including contact information. Also please include the paper title, up to 5 keywords, and a short 150-word single-spaced abstract.
- The “Main Body” document must not exceed 25-pages (double-spaced) with font 11, 1-inch margin of all sides on a portrait page. This is all- inclusive, including exhibits, references, tables/figures, appendices. All tables and figures should be embedded within the text of the manuscript.
- Please submit your full papers in pdf format via Easy Chair. Competitive papers will be double- blind reviewed. Authors should not reveal their identities in the manuscript body.
- The style guide for this submission is 7Th edition APA.
- Please ensure that the paper or a similar version of the paper must not be a) be previously published, b) have been accepted for publication elsewhere, c) be under consideration for publication elsewhere, or d) be submitted for review elsewhere during the conference review process.
- At least one author must register and attend the conference.
- Authors with questions regarding the competitive full paper may contact the conference chair(s).
Workshop Proposal Submission Guidelines
- Proposals for workshops and special session topics of interest to ACRA members are welcome. Session topics addressing methods to improve teaching, research, writing, or presentation skills are welcome along with sessions addressing emerging industry topics
- Proposals are limited to 1-page (single-spaced portrait page with font 11 and 1-inch margin on all sides) which includes:
- name, contact details, email, and affiliation of facilitators/presenters
- workshop/session title
- type of session (e.g., industry panel, research panel, teaching panel, workshop, etc.)
- general content of the session and names of presenters/panelists
- statement of benefit of session to ACRA members
- all workshops/focused sessions should be designed for delivery within a 60-minute period.
Note: Participants leading the workshop/special sessions must register and attend the conference. For inquiries related to the workshop, please contact Dr. Jeffrey Campbell at jcampbell@hrsm.sc.edu
List of Topics
Topics covered in the conference may include, but are not limited to, the following items. Please feel free to reach out to conference chairs should you have any questions. All Extended Abstract Submissions, regardless of topic, should be submitted to Track 10 for Extended Abstracts.
Track 1: Career Development, Retail Education and Pedagogy
Research exploring retail employment, career development, and education. New methods, technology, and pedagogical techniques to enhance education in the classroom and online. Human resources, changes in career paths, and the impact of new technology in retail are also welcome.
Track 2: Consumer/Shopper Psychology and Behavior
Research exploring consumer and shopper psychology and behavior. Exploration of the influence of values, pricing, in-store and online advertising on consumers and shoppers. Brandscape, Servicescape, atmospherics, demographics, psychographics, and other key drivers of consumer and shopper behavior are also welcome.
Track 3: Ethics, DEI, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Sustainability
Research exploring the role of ethics, DEI, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability and its influence on pricing, retailers, suppliers, supply chain, as well as consumers and shoppers. Diversity and inclusion in hiring at all levels of the organization and supply chain, the impact on the retail environment, representation in online retail and retailer and supplier advertising are also welcome.
Track 4: Local, Global Marketing & Retailing, and Entrepreneurship
Research exploring hyper-local, local, regional, national and global retail and entrepreneurship. The influence of pricing, technology, and advertising in business formation. Farmers markets, locally grown food, grocery retailing are explored. The influence of new technologies that can drive entrepreneurship particularly at the hyper- local and local retail level are also welcome.
Track 5: Retail Grocery, Agribusiness, and Food-related Research
Topics to include local foods, food supply chain, food marketing, retail grocery and farmers markets. Direct-to-consumer food research is also encouraged. Agriculture and agribusiness topics are also appropriate for this track as are topics directly related to food marketing.
Track 6: Omni Channel Retailing, Online Retail, and Social Media including Influencer Behavior
Research exploring the integration of in-store, online, mobile, and use of social retail formats either with or without influencer behavior. The impact of social media, online reviews, review sites (e.g., Yelp), influencers, and the various social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) on retail and pricing. Changing retail paradigms from pure-play internet retailers incorporating in- store, retail micro-sites, online entrepreneurship, and new retail formats are also welcome.
Track 7: Fashion and Luxury Retailing
Research exploring trends impacting the fashion, luxury, and related industries. Research focusing on but not limited to supply chain innovations, block chain technologies in promoting transparency and authenticity to curb counterfeit products, digital fashion/NFT fashion, and circular economic model within the fashion and luxury industry are encouraged.
Track 8: Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Big Data, and IoT
Research that explores new technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and the Internet of Things (IoT) and its impact on retailing and marketing. Review of new research on Big Data is also encouraged.
Track 9: Potpourri
Research exploring retail, supplier, product development, supply chain, consumers, and shoppers which has not been provided above. Combinations of topics from above which might not neatly fit one of the defined categories. Interesting new topics which have the ability to impact the current and future state of retail as well as reflections on the past are also welcome.
Track 10: Extended Abstracts
3-5 page research abstracts, other than full papers (please see the note above for format).
Track 11: Workshop Proposals
Workshop proposals on any of the above or closely related topics are welcome.
Conference Proceedings:
ACRA 2025 Univ of South Carolina proceedings will be published.
Journal Special Issue:
Overall best papers may be invited for submission to a Special Issue for the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. IJR&DM is the partner journal of ACRA. For questions, please reach out to Dr. Jeffrey Campbell at: jcampbell@hrsm.sc.edu
Contact
All questions about submissions should be emailed to:
Conference Co-Chairs, Dr. Sang-eun Byun at: SBYUN@mailbox.sc.edu or Dr. Joohyung Park at: JPARK@HRSM.sc.edu
You may also contact the President of ACRA, Dr. Archana Kumar, at: kumara@montclair.edu or Dr. Jeff Campbell, Vice-President of ACRA, at: jcampbell@hrsm.sc.edu
Invitation to Review for Conference:
We kindly request all members to consider volunteering to be a reviewer for the conference.
If you are able to serve in this capacity, please provide your information using this link:
Please Note: Conference/Track chairs will have access to the information and may send you an invite to serve as a reviewer.