joswick.indd Assessing Marketing Literature: A Study of the Readings Assigned in Doctoral Seminars in Marketing Kathleen E. Joswick, Ronald J. Bauerly, and Don T. Johnson The researchers analyzed the assigned readings from the syllabi of doctoral marketing seminars from forty institutions to identify the format, age, and subjects of the materials assigned to and read by graduate students in the field.The overwhelming majority of the assigned readings were journal articles, but monographic material was still frequently used. A relatively small number of journal titles were used consistently across all the programs. There was a distinct lack of agreement on individual article or book selection among the programs. Current resources were favored, but seminal articles in both monographic and serial format were still included. Implications of the findings for libraries and for doctoral education are discussed. he discipline of marketing has been defining itself over the past century. Through shi ing paradigms and expanding parameters, the field is devel- oping into a dynamic, interdisciplinary area of study that combines practical, quantitative, and theoretical aspects. As with any emerging discipline, identifying and acquiring the resources relied on by its scholars is challenging for librarians. Nonetheless, librarians have the respon- sibility to anticipate and supply appropri- ate resources to researchers, teachers, and students in this evolving profession. In order to improve the understanding of the use pa erns of sources in market- ing, this study investigated the assigned reading lists from doctoral-level mar- keting seminars. Readings required by marketing professors, the scholars whose vision defines and advances the identity of the discipline, profoundly impact the field. Likewise, they heavily influence the students in the doctoral classes—the future teachers and researchers who will formulate and disseminate marketing thought in both industry and classrooms. By analyzing the works assigned and read in doctoral seminars, the research- ers documented the resources actually used by professors and students, both serious consumers of published market- ing materials. These resources will be influential in shaping the knowledge base of the marketing discipline in the decades to come. The findings of this study will help librarians, university administra- Kathleen E. Joswick is a Professor in University Libraries and Ronald J. Bauerly and Don T. Johnson are Professors in the Department of Marketing and Finance, all at Western Illinois University; e-mail: k-joswick@wiu.edu; mfrjb@wiu.edu; and DT-Johnson@wiu.edu, respectively. 384 mailto:DT-Johnson@wiu.edu mailto:mfrjb@wiu.edu mailto:k-joswick@wiu.edu tors, and marketing professionals assess the use of existing literature and provide a prospectus for collection development in the future. Literature Review Earlier studies evaluating the compara- tive influence or use of resources in the field of marketing in general have been either subjective or objective. The primary subjective method used was the key infor- mant survey. Key informant studies pro- vide a useful appraisal of the perceived status of resources. (See Browne and Becker; Clark; Coe and Weinstock; Fry, Walters, and Scheuerman; Gordon and Heischmidt; Luke and Doke; and Theo- harakis and Hirst.1–9) In one recent study of this kind, G. Tomas M. Hult, William T. Neese, and R. Edward Bashaw asked marketing faculty to rank the ten most im- portant journals from a list of sixty-three marketing-related titles.10 Participants ranked Journal of Marketing as the most prestigious journal, followed by Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Citation-based measures, typically us- ing data from the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), utilize a common objective method of determining journal influence. A number of studies have employed this approach. (See Chandy and Williams; Cote, Leong, and Cote; Leong; Pieters et al.; Zinkhan and Leigh; and Zinkhan, Roth, and Saxon.11–16) Hans Baumgartner and Rik Pieters gathered 1996–1997 SSCI citation data to measure the influence of forty-nine marketing and marketing- related journals on the discipline and its subareas.17 They identified the same the top three journals as Hult, with the Journal of Marketing first in level of influence and the Journal of Marketing Research and the Journal of Consumer Research second and third, respectively. Investigating the availability of jour- nals in university libraries is another objective measure of journal importance. Frank R. Urbanic and J. Franklin Sailors Assessing Marketing Literature 385 looked at journal holdings in libraries and found that the six most commonly held marketing journals at doctoral-granting institutions were Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Advertising (all held by 100% of the libraries studied), Journal of Marketing Research (held by 97.4% of the libraries), Journal of Advertis- ing Research and the Journal of Consumer Research (both held by 94.7% of the librar- ies).18 Michael J. Polansky, Gary Jones, and Megan J. Kearsley examined Australian library holdings of marketing journals.19 The Strategic Management Journal was the Australian libraries’ most commonly held journal, followed by the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Advertising Research, and the Journal of Business. Inter- estingly, the California Management Review in fi h place and the Australian Journal of Marketing in sixth place appeared in libraries more o en than the Journal of Marketing (seventh) or the Journal of Con- sumer Research (eighth). Studying the readings assigned in doc- toral seminars provides another objective method of measuring the influence of resources. Although no comprehensive doctoral marketing seminar study has been published to date, David L. Kurtz et al. reviewed syllabi from doctoral- level marketing theory seminars.20 The primary focus of the Kurtz study was the content and structure of theory courses, but the authors did find that twenty of the twenty-five most frequently assigned articles in the participating seminars came from the Journal of Marketing. Louis Capella and Ronald Taylor surveyed the instructors of marketing theory courses but did not gather any actual syllabi.21 They reported that three well-known marketing journals—Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science— were the most frequently cited journals. The work that most closely parallels the current study is “Journal Influence on the Design of Finance Doctoral Education,” by Charles J. Corrado and Stephen P. Ferris.22 The authors collected 101 syllabi http:Ferris.22 http:syllabi.21 http:seminars.20 http:journals.19 http:subareas.17 http:titles.10 386 College & Research Libraries from 33 finance doctoral programs. From these syllabi, they created a database of 3,273 citations to finance, economics, and accounting journals. The Journal of Finance dominated their citation list with 36.1 percent of the citations, followed by the Journal of Financial Economics with 27.9 percent. The remaining fi een journals were cited in fewer than 10 percent of the syllabi. Each of these methods of measuring the comparative influence of marketing resources has limitations. Key informants’ perceptions are subject to bias stemming from such things as the rater’s familiarity with various resources, area of expertise, and perception of the status of the re- sources apart from their actual use. The rater also may be tempted to give greater consideration to those journals in which he or she has published articles, served on its editorial board, or was otherwise con- nected.23 Although citation index studies are commonly accepted as use studies, the citation indexes rank only journals—and a rather limited pool of journals at that. Library holdings studies record existing collection norms but do not necessarily reflect use. Each of these methods falls short of accurately mirroring the complete spectrum of resources used by marketing scholars. The present study combines elements of both the citation and the key informant measures. Examining the references listed on syllabi from doctoral marketing seminars is certainly a citation analysis. However, the fact that the professors teaching the doctoral seminars select these references imparts an element of a key informant study. This methodology, not used before to examine marketing resources, analyzes all the sources that comprise doctoral seminar readings and therefore evaluates their use and relative influence on the discipline of marketing and related fields of inquiry. Methodology During the spring of 2001, the research- ers sent le ers to all of the 101 universi- September 2004 ties that offer doctoral-level programs in marketing as identified by the AACS’s Doctoral Programs in Business & Man- agement in the USA.24 They requested copies of the syllabi from current or recent doctoral seminars. Follow-up le ers and e-mails were sent to nonre- sponding programs. As a result of these solicitations, the researchers received responses from forty-eight institutions. Five responders indicated that they no longer offered doctoral seminars in marketing; three sent incomplete or unusable information. In the end, the re- searchers studied 108 usable syllabi from 40 different institutions (41.7% of the marketing programs). The participating institutions represent a cross section of marketing departments from highly ranked business schools in the United States and Canada. Half the samples’ schools and slightly over half of all the citations studied came from graduate business schools that were ranked in the top fi y by the U.S. News & World Report in 2001.25 Based on the stated program requirements, the sample syllabi repre- sent 68 percent of the required doctoral marketing seminars from the respective institutions. The topics of the seminars fell into five broad categories: consumer behavior (22 seminars, or 20.4% of the total number of courses studied), quantitative marketing models (15 seminars, or 13.9%), research methods (17 seminars, or 15.7%), market- ing strategy (20 seminars, or 18.5%), and marketing theory (16 seminars, or 14.8%). Other seminars were marketing channels (5 seminars, or 4.6%), international mar- keting (4 seminars, or 3.7%), multivariate statistics (3 seminars, or 2.8%), and six others (5.6%). Syllabi from seminars offered by the same professor at the same universities in consecutive terms or years were counted as a single syllabus. Table 1 lists the uni- versities supplying syllabi to the study, the number of syllabi each institution provided, and the number of citations that were studied from these syllabi. http:nected.23 Assessing Marketing Literature 387 TABLE 1 University Sources of Syllabi and Citations School Syllabi Citations School Syllabi Citations Boston U 5 152 U of British Columbia 2 122 Cleveland State U 1 92 U of Calif. at Los Angeles 3 174 Cornell U 2 111 U of Calif. at Berkeley 3 239 Duke U 2 215 U of Chicago 1 12 Florida State U 3 175 U of Illinois 2 202 Georgia State U 5 150 U of Illinois–Chicago 2 127 Indiana U 2 98 U of Kentucky 4 264 London Business 1 61 U of Maryland 2 89 Louisiana State U 1 153 U of Michigan 1 50 New Mexico State 2 176 U of Minnesota 5 369 New York U 2 186 U of Missouri 2 222 Oklahoma State U 1 148 U of North Carolina 2 96 Pennsylvania State 3 147 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) 4 297 Queens U 4 275 U of Southern California 5 494 Southern Illinois U 5 322 U of South Florida 3 323 Stanford U 3 113 U of Texas–Austin 4 254 Texas A&M U 1 71 U of Toronto 4 209 Texas Tech U 3 300 U of Utah 1 46 U of Arizona 1 270 U of Washington 4 177 U of Arkansas 4 150 York U 3 123 University sources of the 108 usable syllabi and of the 7,254 cited references listed on the syllabi The researchers investigated incom- plete or unclear citations in bibliographic and Web-based databases to verify and/or complete as many citations as possible. They eventually identified approximately 99 percent of the cited references. To avoid the undue influence that could result from one article being cited in multiple reading lists from one program, duplicate journal article citations from the same institution were removed. However, citations to en- tire books were counted each time they were referenced. Multiple references to different articles from the same book of collected readings within a syllabus were counted as only one citation to the book. The resulting 7,254 references to required or recommended sources cited in the syl- labi were entered into a spreadsheet and analyzed. Format Over 86 percent of the recommended read- ings were journal articles—6,294. Formats other than journal articles represented only slightly more than 13 percent of the cita- tions. The syllabi included 832 citations to books: 578 (7.9%) citations to entire books and 254 (3.5%) citations to edited collec- tions of readings, for a total of 11.45 percent of the total citations. References to working papers, frequently authored by the profes- sor conducting the seminar, numbered 97, or 1.34 percent. Conference proceedings or presentations represented another 0.25 percent. An insignificant number of cita- 388 College & Research Libraries tions were made to articles published in newspapers or popular magazines, and videos, short stories, or news transcripts. One Web site was cited. Obviously, journal articles heavily influ- ence doctoral-level studies in marketing. Scholarly and professional journals in mar- keting, management, and human behavior are the dominant format of the literature for the marketing discipline as a whole. Their importance for collection develop- ment in the field cannot be overstated. Citations to books and articles or chapters from anthologies comprised over 11 percent of the readings. Although the principal method of communication among marketing scholars has shi ed from books to journal articles over the decades of the discipline’s development, books continue to play an important part in the education of marketing scholars. Journal collections and electronic full-text databases alone cannot provide the entire range of materials required in the disci- pline. Librarians must vigorously defend materials budgets to ensure that they have the financial resources to continue to col- lect monographic material in marketing and its related areas. The only other resource format that was significantly cited in the seminars was working papers. Of the ninety-seven citations identified as unpublished works- in-progress, the professor of the seminar authored thirty-eight (39.17%). Although it is difficult to envision a way in which librarians could predict the need for and collect this type of document, it is remark- able to note that unpublished papers were cited more than newspapers, magazines, conference proceedings, or Web sites com- bined. Tracking the research interests of the institution’s marketing professors and producing bibliographies or collections of the works-in-progress of local research- ers would be a way that librarians could enrich their local collections. The Cited Journals The syllabi included references to articles from 248 research journals. Fi y-seven September 2004 journals were cited ten or more times. These frequently cited journals represent 22.9 percent of all the cited journals, but they accounted for 93.4 percent of the article citations. At the other end of the spectrum, one hundred journals (40.3% of the total number of journal titles) were cited only once. One hundred sev- enty-three (69.8%) of the journals were mentioned five times or fewer. The least frequently cited journals account for only 304, or 4.8 percent, of the total number of article citations. Once again, research confirms the fact that a small number of journals account for the majority of the use. The leading journals with the number and percentage of citations are listed in table 2. Because these journals so dominate the seminars’ reading lists, libraries supporting programs in market- ing will recognize the significance of these fi y-seven titles. The most frequently cited journals were the core journals in marketing. Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science accounted for 4,194 (66.63%) of all the article cita- tions. Notable in these results, however, is the portion of citations that came from journals that were not considered in prior research. Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Market Research occupied the first through third rankings in the current study as well as the key informant survey by G. Tomas M. Hult, William T. Neese, and R. Ed- ward Bashaw and the citation analysis study by Baumgartner and Pieters.26,27 Marketing Science and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science were also highly ranked in all three studies. A er these core journals, however, the other high-ranking journals diverge strongly. For example, the Journal of Retailing was twentieth in the current study, but fourth and fi h on the Hult surveys and ninth on the Baumgartner and Pieter list. Harvard Business Review was tenth in this rank- ing, but seventh on the Hult surveys and Assessing Marketing Literature 389 TABLE 2 Journals Cited Ten or More Times Rank 1 Title of Journal Journal of Marketing Number of Citations 1,434 % of Citations 22.8 2 Journal of Consumer Research 1,217 19.3 3 Journal of Marketing Research 853 13.6 4 Marketing Science 476 7.6 5 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 206 3.3 6 Management Science 141 2.4 7 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 111 1.8 8 Psychological Bulletin 96 1.5 9 Strategic Management Journal 92 1.5 10 Harvard Business Review 80 1.3 11 Psychological Review 71 1.1 12 American Psychologist 67 1.1 13 Journal of International Business Studies 64 1.0 14 Academy of Management Review 54 0.9 15 International Journal of Research in Marketing 43 0.7 16 Annual Review of Psychology 37 0.6 17 Administrative Science Quarterly 36 0.6 18 Journal of Business 33 0.5 18 Rand Journal of Economics 33 0.5 18 Structural Equation Modeling 33 0.5 21 American Economic Review 32 0.5 21 Journal of Retailing 32 0.5 23 Advances in Consumer Research 30 0.5 24 Marketing Letters 29 0.5 25 Journal of Services Marketing 28 0.4 25 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 28 0.4 27 Academy of Management Journal 27 0.4 27 Journal of Consumer Psychology 27 0.4 29 Journal of Business Research 26 0.4 30 American Marketing Association Proceedings 23 0.4 30 Journal of Political Economy 23 0.4 30 Quarterly Journal of Economics 23 0.4 33 Journal of Macromarketing 20 0.3 34 Econometrica 19 0.3 34 Journal of Advertising Research 19 0.3 390 College & Research Libraries September 2004 TABLE 2 Journals Cited Ten or More Times Rank 36 Title of Journal Journal of Service Research Number of Citations 18 % of Citations 0.3 37 American Journal of Sociology 16 0.3 37 Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 0.3 37 Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 16 0.3 37 Public Opinion Quarterly 16 0.3 41 Journal of Applied Psychology 14 0.2 41 Psychological Science 14 0.2 41 Sloan Management Review 14 0.2 44 Business Horizons 13 0.2 44 Educational and Psychological Measurement 13 0.2 44 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 13 0.2 44 Science 13 0.2 48 Journal of Management 12 0.2 48 Organizational Science 12 0.2 48 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 12 0.2 48 Philosophy of the Social Sciences 12 0.2 48 Psychological Methods 12 0.2 48 Psychometrika 12 0.2 54 Journal of Business Logistics 11 0.2 55 Decision Sciences 10 0.2 55 Multivariate Behavioral Research 10 0.2 55 Operations Research 10 0.2 Joint distribution of journals from 6,294 article citations. Multiple citations from a single school were counted as a single citation. Only journals with at least 10 citations are listed in this table. fourth on the Baumgartener citation list. Journals with reputations for publishing research that is more empirical and practi- cal, such as Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, and Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, were ranked as high as ninth on the survey and citation lists but were not even in the top twenty-five journals in this study. Nearly one-sixth (16.5%) of the journals cited in this study were not examined in two extensive key informant and citation analyses studies of journal importance. The fi y-seven most frequently cited journals in this study include thirty-three journals not even included in the two earlier articles. In previous key informant surveys, faculty at universities with doctoral programs in marketing have indicated they believe that “practical” journals such as Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, Strategic Manage- ment Journal, and Harvard Business Review are important and effective at transmit- ting information to the field. Yet, they infrequently assign readings from these journals in their doctoral seminars. In actual practice, faculty rely heavily on the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Marketing Research (55.7% of all citations), less extensively on Marketing Science and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Society (11.0%, combined), and then fill in with psychol- ogy and management literature. Of the 6,294 journal citations in the syllabi, the Journal of Advertising was cited only three times and the Journal of Personal Sell- ing and Sales Management once. Articles published in any journal other than the top five marketing journals are much less likely to influence the education of new marketing doctorates. Identifying the call numbers suggested by the Library of Congress for the jour- nals enabled the researchers to categorize them into the broad subject areas. Sug- gested call numbers were located for 243 of the 248 journals. Obviously, marketing journals were most commonly used; 21.4 percent (53) of all the journals were classi- fied in HF. Journals in psychology and/or psychiatry (BF and RC classifications) comprised the second largest group of journals with 43, or 17.7 percent. Manage- ment titles (HD, HE) were a close third with 38, or 15.6 percent. Economics (HB, Assessing Marketing Literature 391 HC, HG) and the combined disciplines of sociology and anthropology (G and HM- HV) made up the next largest groups. The varied subjects of the cited journals illustrate how heavily the discipline of marketing is influenced by publications from journals in related, yet diverse, fields. (See figure 1.) The Cited Articles Despite the fact that the syllabi cited journals from a wide array of disciplines, looking at the numbers of articles cited from the journals rather than the num- bers of journal titles cited revealed an overwhelming predominance of articles from marketing journals (over 75%). The fi y-two journals identified as marketing titles constitute the primary resources for doctoral studies in marketing. Not surprisingly, the articles cited from other disciplines are dwarfed when compared to those from the field of marketing. (See figure 2.) Although this study established a list of frequently cited journal titles, there was considerable sca er in the actual articles that appeared on the reading lists. One article was cited fourteen times, and two FIGURE 1 Subjects of Journals, by Number of Journals Marketing (HF) 21% Statistics (HA, QA) 4% Sociology and Anthropology (G, HM-HV) 10% Social Sciences, General (H) 5% Management (HD, HE) 16% Science & Technology (Q-- except QA, T) 5% Economics (HB, HC, HG) 12% Psychology (BF, R) 18% Miscellaneous (A,B,D,E,J,K,S,V,Z) 10% 392 College & Research Libraries September 2004 FIGURE 2 Subjects of Journals, by Number of Citations Economics (HB, HC, HG) 3.1% Science & Technology (Q--except QA, T) 1% Management (HD, HE) 8.0% Social Sciences, General (H) 0.5% Sociology and Anthropology (G, HM-HV) 3.1% Statistics (HA, QA) 0.8% Psychology (BF, R) 7.4% Miscellaneous (A,B,D,E,J,K,S,V,Z) 1.0% Marketing (HF) 75.5% articles were cited thirteen times. But the twenty-eight most frequently cited arti- cles represent only 5.0 percent of the total article citations. Over 82 percent (5,173) of the articles appeared on the reading lists of five or fewer doctoral programs. Almost 35 percent of the articles (2,188, or 34.76%) were cited in only one seminar. There is not a core list of seminal articles that compose the canon of the discipline’s literature. (See table 3 for a distribution of the articles cited.) Articles from special issues of journals were included on the reading lists more frequently than those from regular is- sues of the same journals. Most o en, the journal editors or review boards invite notable researchers to submit articles for special issues. Their focus is frequently an underresearched or innovative topic. Apparently, these features of breaking new ground with articles from influential researchers make the issues more likely to be assigned and studied. For example, between 1991 and 2000, nearly 40 percent of the citations from the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science came from three special issues published in 1992, 1999, and 2000. Articles from these special issues were cited nearly five times more frequently than articles from the regular issues during those years. Three other top marketing journals (Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research and Market- ing Science) published special issues in the period 1991–2000. With the exception of the Journal of Marketing, articles cited in these special issues received higher cita- tion rates than the other issues in those years. Special issues have a profound in- fluence on the profession. They are likely to have higher use and longer shelf life than regular issues of the same journal. The Cited Books The 832 citations to books included 542 unique book titles. The same degree of sca er observed in the journal articles was shown among the cited books. One book, Thomas S. Robertson and Harold K. Kas- sarjian’s Handbook of Consumer Behavior, was cited on nineteen of the reading lists, but the vast majority of the books (646, or 77.64%) appeared on fewer than five lists. Four hundred twenty-eight books were found on only one list. This study TABLE 3 Distribution of Article Citations No. of Articles No. of Citations Citation Total Percent of Total Cumulative Percentage 1 14 14 0.2 0.2 2 13 26 0.4 0.6 5 12 60 1.0 1.6 15 11 165 2.6 3.9 5 10 50 0.8 5.1 17 9 153 2.4 7.6 18 8 144 2.3 9.7 29 7 203 3.2 12.9 51 6 306 4.9 17.8 72 5 360 5.7 23.5 157 4 628 10.0 33.5 271 3 813 12.9 46.4 592 2 1,184 18.8 65.2 2,188 1 2,188 34.8 6,294 article citations 100.0 Total= 3,423 unique articles demonstrates that doctoral students are exposed to a wide range of monographic literature, most of which cannot be suc- cessfully pigeonholed by either author or topic. The distribution of book citations is shown in table 4. Wo r k s i n c l u d e d on six or more semi- nars’ reading lists are shown in table 5. T h e s u b j e c t s o f the cited books also varied considerably. Predictablely, mar- keting call numbers (HF) dominated the field with 227 citations (27.4%). However, oth- er disciplines also were strongly represented: statistics (119), psy- chology (94), sociol- ogy/anthropology (92), research methodology in the social sciences (86), management (67), Assessing Marketing Literature 393 science (52), eco- nomics (46), and philosophy (25). The topical range of the books cited i l l u s t r a t e s t h e breadth of grad- uate marketing education and the variety of resourc- es doctoral stu- dents read. (See figure 3.) This is in sharp contrast to the journal ar- ticles cited. As mentioned earli- er, over 75 percent of the articles as- signed were from journals classified as marketing, but only 27.4 percent of the books were. Libraries in uni- versities offering these programs must understand that researchers in marketing require more monographic resources outside their TABLE 4 Distribution of Book Citations No. of Books No. of Citations Citation Total Percent of Total Cumulative Percentage 1 19 19 2.28 2.28 1 16 16 1.92 4.20 1 14 14 1.68 5.89 1 13 13 1.56 7.45 1 8 8 0.96 8.41 4 7 28 3.37 11.78 8 6 48 5.77 17.54 8 5 40 4.81 22.35 11 4 44 5.29 27.64 18 3 54 6.49 34.13 60 2 120 14.42 48.55 428 1 428 51.44 832 book citations 100.00 Total = 542 unique titles 394 College & Research Libraries discipline than within their discipline by a ratio of more than three to one. The Age of the Resources Librarians should pay close a ention to the publication year of sources listed as required or recommended readings. Deci- sions to acquire, retain, or store older is- sues of journals and books obviously hinge on anticipated usage. Although doctoral programs emphasize recent developments in theory, methodology, and empirical data analysis, it does not automatically follow that instructors and students rely solely on the latest research. To shed light on the currency of the cited sources, the research- ers looked at the age of each citation. Age was defined as the difference between the year of use and the year of publication. Therefore, a citation that appeared on a reading list in the same year that it was published had an age of zero. The median age of all the journal ar- ticle citations was eight years; the mean was 10.3 years; the mode was one year. Professors obviously feel it is essential to expose doctoral students to the very latest literature, as 9.5 percent of all the articles read in the doctoral classes were no more than a year old. Over one-third of the cited articles were less than six years old and one half were published within eight years. Nonetheless, 10.2 percent were published before 1980. Despite the fact that professors weighted their reading lists with a heavy dose of current journal articles, older, probably seminal, articles have stood the test of time and continue to be part of the discipline’s literature. Citations from the five main marketing journals had a median age of seven years. The median age of citations from journals outside the five main marketing journals was ten years, indicating that many of these articles were probably more influ- ential in a specific subdiscipline. The average age for books was 16.52 years; the mean was twelve years; the mode was nine years. The most fre- quently occurring publication year was 1991. The earliest book cited was from September 2004 1934 (Institutional Economics, by John R. Commons). As with journal articles, very current works were heavily cited; 10.19 percent of the books had an age of zero or one. Although 46.5 percent of the cited books were published since 1990, sources published in the 1980s, 1970s, and even in the 1950s are still required reading in doctoral seminars. The ages of all the sources with publi- cation dates capable of being verified are shown in figure 4. The broad age range of the required sources is a healthy reflection of the pro- fessors’ efforts to maintain a cu ing edge while, at the same time, building on the science’s past. Conclusions Journal articles dominate marketing lit- erature. Almost 87 percent of the readings assigned to doctoral students are journal articles whereas only 11.5 percent of the readings are from monographic sources. Professors customize the background readings they require by selecting and assigning specific articles to be studied. Textbooks or book-length collections of readings, if used, are heavily supplement- ed with specific journal articles tailored to the specialized approach of the professor or the theme of the course. Although unstated, one must imply that marketing professors rely on their in- stitutional libraries to provide convenient access to these articles in either printed or electronic formats. Although it is possible that some professors created course packs containing photocopies of the articles they assigned, none of the syllabi made mention of such a service. It must be assumed that institutional and departmental libraries, library reserve systems, and library-hosted databases are the primary suppliers of the seminars’ assigned readings. Librarians and scholars should con- tinue to monitor the ratio of serial to monographic readings in marketing, as well as track the relative significance of popular magazines, newspapers, and Web sites. Changes in the type of litera- Assessing Marketing Literature 395 TABLE 5 Most Frequently Cited Books Rank Citations Book 1 19 Robertson, Thomas S., and Harold K. Kassarjian. Handbook of Con- sumer Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1991. 2 16 Lilien, Gary L., Philip Kotler, and K. Sridhar Moorthy. Marketing Mod- els. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1992. 3 14 Hunt, Shelby D. Modern Marketing Theory: Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science. Cincinnati, Ohio : South-Western Pub. Co., 1991. 4 13 Hair, Joseph F. Multivariate Data Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall [various editions]. 5 8 Bettman, James R. An Information Processing Theory of Consumer Choice. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1979. 5 8 Eliashberg, Jehoshua., and Gary L. Lilien. Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science. Volume 5: Marketing. New York: North-Holland, 1990s. 5 8 Lindzey, Gardner, editor. Handbook of Social Psychology. Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley 1954– [various editions]. 8 7 Berkowitz, Leonard. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. New York: Academic Press, 1964– [various editions]. 8 7 Cook, Thomas D., and Donald Thomas Campbell. Quasi-experimenta- tion: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. 8 7 Kuhn, Thomas S. Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press [various editions]. 8 7 Nunnally, Jum C. Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill [vari- ous editions]. 12 6 Bollen, Kenneth A. Structural Equations with Latent Variables. New York: Wiley, 1989. 12 6 Chalmers, A. F. What Is This Thing Called Science?: An Assessment of the Nature and Status of Science and Its Methods. St. Lucia, Quebec: University of Queensland Press [various editions]. 12 6 DeVellis, Robert F. Scale Development: Theory and Applications. New- bury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1991. 12 6 Eagley, Alice Hendrickson, and Shelly Chaiken. The Psychology of Atti- tudes. Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publish- ers, 1993. 12 6 Kerlinger, Fred N. Foundations of Behavioral Research. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston [various editions]. 12 6 McGrath, Joseph Edward, Joanne Martin, and Richard A. Kulka. Judgment Calls in Research. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982. 12 6 Sheth, Jagdish N., David Morgan Gardner, and Dennis E. Garrett. Market- ing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation. New York: Wiley, 1988. 12 6 Zaltman, Gerald, Karen LeMasters, and Michael Heffring. Theory Con- struction in Marketing: Some Thoughts on Thinking. New York: Wiley, 1982. 396 College & Research Libraries September 2004 FIGURE 3 Subjects of Books Methodology (H) 10.4% Management (HD-HE) 8.1% Science (Q, not QA) 6.0% Economics (HB-HC) 5.5% Philosophy (B-BD) 3.0% Miscellaneous (C,D,L,P,Z) 2.3% Psychology (BF) 11.3% Sociology/Anthropology (GN, HM-HV) 11.6% Statistics (HA, QA) 14.4% Marketing (HF) 27.4% ture doctoral students read can have far- reaching consequences for the profession and the libraries supplying the resources. It is worth remembering, for example, that a er articles and books, dra s of profes- sors’ research reports comprise the next largest format listed on the syllabi. Doctoral students are exposed to a body of knowledge primarily derived from a handful of journals. The pres- ent study confirms the preeminence of the Journal of Marketing as the principal vehicle for the distribution of influential articles in marketing. Consistent with earlier citation studies, this study also identified Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Market- ing Research as the foremost journals in the field. The American Marketing Association (AMA) sponsors two of these flagship journals, Journal of Marketing and Journal of Marketing Research. Through these publica- tions, the AMA has guided the discipline’s development from a field that was largely descriptive to one with a strong scientific standing. The association has influenced virtually all levels of marketing research- ers and continues to influence current and future scholars. Because the AMA dissemi- nates almost half of the journal articles read in doctoral programs, it must recognize the tremendous weight of responsibility it bears. AMA’s editors must be careful to avoid unintentionally blocking diverse ideas or unestablished authors. Editorial decisions made by these premier journals not only determine what is published in the mainstream marketing outlets, but also determine the subject ma er, the tech- niques, and the style of the resources that are used to educate doctoral students. Respected core journals that report more practical research, such as Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Man- agement, Journal of Retailing, and Journal of Pubic Policy and Marketing, are infrequently the source of assigned readings in doc- toral marketing seminars. Although no marketing collection could be considered complete without these applied journals, marketing seminars obviously concentrate on a theoretical approach more com- monly addressed in traditional academic sources. Assessing Marketing Literature 397 FIGURE 4 Age of Cited Sources 175 0 100 200 300 400 F re q u e n c y 331 291 303 282 269 300 279 268 248 240 214 234 203 146 150 118 127 120 87 63 61 60 39 39 34 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Age of Citations in Years The syllabi identified a broad range of work from outside the marketing disci- pline, sources that earlier key informant and citation studies did not investigate. Psychology and management journals fol- lowed closely behind marketing journals as the sources for recommended readings. Although no individual nonmarketing journal exercised substantial influence, collectively, nonmarketing journals played a meaningful role. Libraries have an obligation to provide access to a broad range of business, statistical, and behav- ior-related journals to their marketing scholars. Departmental or college-based libraries will be er serve their clientele by redefining their scope to incorporate sources beyond the literature based strictly on traditional marketing areas. Furthermore, administrators and librar- ians responsible for resource selection and de-selection decisions must understand that users of a discipline’s resources are frequently from outside the commonly drawn confines of the discipline. All users of psychology journals, for example, are not psychologists. Despite the high concentration of articles from the top marketing journals, the assigned articles were remarkably diverse. Even the most frequently cited article was mentioned by only 35 percent of the schools (14 of the 40). This lack of a common body of articles is evident even within the specific seminar topical areas, subdisciplines with a tighter focus and fewer core journals. Why is there such a scarcity of articles common across programs and within topical areas? Indi- vidual professors’ approach, strategy, and overall philosophy significantly influence the articles selected. This diversity could signify that marketing is still a young sci- ence and that a common body of seminal resources will emerge only a er the dis- cipline matures. Nonetheless, marketing professors should question if greater standardization in readings is desir- able. Certainly, increasing the number of sources universally assigned in seminars would enhance the common vocabulary among graduates of the programs and would have the potential to improve doctoral education. Until that happens, however, there is li le hope that a common textbook or col- lection of readings will satisfy the needs of all professors and students. Librarians will have to be vigilant in their efforts to study emerging trends in the discipline in order to anticipate and supply appropri- ate resources. Notes 1. William G. Brown and Boris W. Becker, “Perceived Quality of Marketing Journals,” Journal of Marketing Education 1 (Nov. 1979): 6–15. 398 College & Research Libraries September 2004 2. ——— “Perceptions of Marketing Journals: Awareness and Quality Evaluations,” in The 1985 AMA Educators’ Proceedings, ed. Robert F. Lusch (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1985), 149–54. 3. ———. “Longitudinal Study of Marketing Journal Familiarity and Quality,” in The 1991 AMA Educators’ Proceedings: Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing, ed. Mary C. Gilly (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1991), 702–10. 4. Gary L. Clark, “Leading Marketing Departments in the United States: Who Is Publishing Where and How Much Are They Publishing? in Proceedings of the AMA Summer Educators’ Confer- ence, ed. Terrence A. Shimp, et al. (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1986), 149–53. 5. Robert K. Coe and Irwin Weinstock, “Evaluating Journal Publications of Marketing Profes- sors: A Second Look,” Journal of Marketing Education 5 (spring 1983): 37–42. 6. Elaine Hobbs Fry, C. Glenn Walters, and Lawrence E. Scheuermann, “Perceived Quality of Fi y Selected Journals: Academicians and Practitioners,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 13 (spring 1985): 352–61. 7. Peter J. Gordon and Kenneth A. Heischmidt, “Evaluation of Marketing Publications: Some New Findings,” in Enhancing Knowledge Development in Marketing: 1992 AMA Educators’ Proceedings, ed. Robert P. Leone and V. Kumar (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1992), 318–19. 8. Robert H. Luke and E. Reed Doke, “Marketing Journal Hierarchies and Faculty Percep- tions, 1986–1987,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 15, no. 1 (1987): 74–78. 9. Vasalis Theoharakis and Andrew Hirst, “Perceptual Differences of Marketing Journals: A Worldwide Perspective,” Marketing Le ers 13, no. 4 (2002): 389–402. 10. G. Tomas M. Hult, William T. Neese, and R. Edward Bashaw, “Faculty Perceptions of Marketing Journals,” Journal of Marketing Education 19, no. 1 (1997): 37–52. 11. P. R. Chandy and Thomas G. E. Williams, “The Impact of Journals and Authors on Inter- national Business Research: A Citational Analysis of JIBS Articles,” Journal of International Business Studies 25, no. 4 (1994): 715–28. 12. Joseph A. Cote, Siew Meng Leong, and Jane Cote, “Assessing the Influence of the Journal of Consumer Research: A Citation Analysis,” Journal of Consumer Research 18, no. 3 (1991): 402–10. 13. Siew Meng Leong, “A Citation Analysis of the Journal of Consumer Research,” Journal of Consumer Research 15 (Mar. 1989): 492–97. 14. Rich Pieters, Hans Baumgartner, et al., “Importance and Similarity in the Evolving Citation Network of the International Journal of Research in Marketing,” International Journal of Research in Marketing 16, no. 2 (June 1999): 113–27. 15. George M. Zinkhan and Thomas W. Leigh, “Assessing the Quality Rankings of the Journal of Advertising, 1986–1997,” Journal of Advertising 28, no. 2 (1999): 51–70. 16. George M. Zinkhan, Martin S. Roth, and Mary Jane Saxton, “Knowledge Development and Scientific Status in Consumer-Behavior Research: A Social Exchange Perspective,” Journal of Consumer Research 19, no. 2 (Sept. 1992): 282–91. 17. Hans Baumgartner and Rik Pieters, “The Structural Influence of Marketing Journals: A Citation Analysis of the Discipline and Its Subareas over Time,” Journal of Marketing 67, no. 2 (Apr. 2003): 123–39. 18. Frank R.Urbanic and J. Franklin Sailors, “Marketing Journals: A Study of University Library Holdings,” Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship 2, no.2 (1997): 17–33. 19. Michael J. Polonsky, Gary Jones, and Megan J. Kearsley, “Accessibility, an Alternative Method of Ranking Marketing Journals,” Journal of Marketing Education 21, no. 3 (1999): 181–93. 20. David L. Kurtz, Anne M. Vellique e, et al., “An Evaluation of the Marketing Theory Seminar in Ph.D. Programs: Teaching Alternatives and Future Directions,” Marketing Education Review 7, no.2 (1997): 1–15. 21. Louis Capella and Ronald Taylor, “Marketing Theory Courses: A Longitudinal Analysis,” in Proceedings of the 1989 Annual Meeting of the Southern Marketing Association, ed. Robert King (Charleston, S.C.: The Association, 1989), 242–46. 22. Charles J. Corrado and Stephen P. Ferris, “Journal Influence on the Design of Finance Doctoral Education,” Journal of Finance 52, no. 5 (1997): 2091–2102. 23. Theoharakis and Hirst, “Perceptual Differences of Marketing Journals.” 24. American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, Doctoral Programs in Business & Management in the USA, 2001 (Victoria, B.C.: Academic, the El Group, 2000). 25. “Schools of Business: The Top Schools,” U.S. News & World Report 130, no. 14 (Apr. 9, 2001): 68. 26. Hult, Neese, and Bashaw, “Faculty Perceptions of Marketing Journals.” 27. Baumgartner and Pieters, “The Structural Influence of Marketing.”