August 04, 2015
Jarvis earns recognition from business journal
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- A prestigious business journal has recognized an article co-authored by Southern Illinois University Carbondale faculty member Cheryl Burke Jarvis as one of the most cited articles in the journal’s history.
Jarvis, associate dean of the College of Business and marketing professor, along with colleagues Scott B. MacKenzie, Neal Gilliatt, chair of Marketing at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., and Philip M. Podsakoff, professor emeritus of management, also at Indiana University, wrote “A Critical Review of Construct Indicators and Measurement Model Misspecification in Marketing and Consumer Research,” published in September 2003.
The Journal of Consumer Research, in recognition of its 40th anniversary, published an article entitled “Celebrating 40 years of the Journal of Consumer Research.” It highlights the most cited article for each year and the authors, the average number of citations each received annually and the total citations for each since published. The number of citations is an indicator of the impact of the work done by researchers.
The Jarvis piece was the top article for 2003 and has been cited 944 times since, making it the seventh most-cited article of all time for the journal and the second most-cited on average per year. The journal is published six times annually and the analysis of citations was conducted by Oxford University Press.
“It is an honor to be included in this list of impactful research articles alongside some of the icons in the field. Other articles selected as part of this 40-year history have been written by some of my own academic heroes,” Jarvis said.
The article focuses on a statistical technique for modeling abstract concepts and perceptions, essentially figuring out “what goes on inside people’s heads” with regard to beliefs, emotions and attitudes and how they act on them, according to Jarvis. The technique Jarvis and her co-authors discuss allows researchers to better investigate marketing aspects including people’s attitudes toward a brand, satisfaction levels, perceived risks and buyer’s remorse. By more precisely assessing attitudes and thoughts, one can more accurately predict consumer preferences, purchase intentions and other business outcomes and adjust marketing and products accordingly.
The article has had a notable effect on businesses and the way academics and practitioners conduct their research. For instance, the IBM Almaden Research Center identifies the article as required reading for all of its statisticians and the modeling technique it details is being used by industry.
Jarvis and her co-authors have expounded upon their work in two other articles published in separate journals. She notes that one of the reasons her work is so heavily cited is because it involves methodological or statistical research procedures that have applications to other fields. Researchers in social science fields such as sociology, psychology and economics also find applications for her research results regarding human behavior within their fields of study.