Journal of Marketing Researchin the New Competitive Journalistic Environment

Abstract

The other journals responded by moving into each other’s turf. Under Steve Shugan, Marketing Science has proudly expanded its focus from high symbol density to high impact, regardless of the area. Under John Deighton, Journal of Consumer Research has moved away from consumer psychology and toward consumer research that is generally relevant to understanding consumers and marketing managers. Finally, under Roland Rust, Journal of Marketing has moved away from applications-based articles for managers and theorists and toward more analytic and modelingoriented articles. What created this drive toward the center, this erosion of partitions that previously rationalized the premier journals? Part of the erosion arose from the reasonable desire on the part of each editor to get the articles with the most impact in the field and an unwillingness to reject preemptively articles that did not fit a predetermined mold. In addition, each new editor would feature his or her personal areas of expertise without excluding those of the predecessor. This mission creep was supported by the broad skills of large review boards and teams of AEs who could make up for the limitations of any one editor. Simply put, editors poached each other’s territory because they could; even if editors did not understand an issue, there were review board members or AEs who understood it well. Who are the winners and losers in this increasingly competitive academic marketplace? What are the implications for editors, readers, and the field in general? I believe that the editors now have a more difficult job because they must process more articles across a broader range of topics. Moreover, if they do not do their jobs well, they could visibly lose out to the competition. From the perspective of a reader, it could be argued that information gathering is less efficient because each journal can no longer be counted on to carry its traditional assortment of articles. However, in today’s system of Web-based access to journal articles, this loss of efficiency is arguably less binding than it was even five years ago. I believe that the field and the authors are the big winners as journal editors jockey for dominance. The authors are winners because editors actively compete for their work. This increased author power leads to several changes. Reviews have become noticeably more civil and constructive, if not less painful. Turnaround time has dropped by at least a factor of two as the editors compete on the number of days to respond to authors. It is theoretically possible for a person to have the same article reviewed by all four journals within a year. The gain to the field is that February, the first annual issue of Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), is the traditional time for new JMR editors to answer questions about their policies. What kind of work will be favored? How will the new editor try to shape the field? The purpose of this first editorial is to answer such questions. The simple answer can be given in one sentence. Through the associate editor (AE) system, I will broaden the range of articles that JMR publishes and focus on highimpact articles that reflect the cutting edge of research while striving to make them increasingly accessible to a wider range of scholars and practitioners.