Consumer research can be classified along a continuum from basic research, involv-ing new theories, concepts, and explanations, to applications and minor extensions
of existing theories and concepts. One might expect that in the early development
of a new applied field such as consumer research there would be greater empha-sis on applications of existing theories and borrowing from other, more established
fields. However, over time, consumer researchers may seek to go beyond mere
applications and minor theoretical extensions and introduce significant theoretical
extensions and concepts, and in some cases, new theories relating to buyer behavior.
To examine this question more systematically, two independent judges (doc-toral students specializing in consumer behavior) coded consumer research articles
(not including postmodern articles) that have appeared in the August issues of the
Journal of Marketing Researchbetween 1969 and 1999 and articles that appeared
in the September issues of the JCRbetween 1974 (the journal’s first year) and
1999. Specifically, the judges coded articles dealing with consumer behavior on
1– 4 scale, where 1 represents applications or minor extensions of established
theories and phenomena (e.g. an investigation of a particular moderator or bound-ary condition, or ruling out an alternative explanation), and 4 represents articles
introducing new constructs, theories, and/or phenomena.
The results show a significant time trend (correlationD0.15), with the linear
regression model yielding a significant coefficient for year as a predictor (p <
0.005). Specifically, looking at 5-year periods from 1969 through 1998, the pro-portion of articles coded as applications of existing theories and minor extensions
(i.e. articles coded 1 or 2 on the 1– 4 scale) declined continuously, from 94 % in
1969–1973 to 66% in 1994 –1998. This trend is consistent with the notion that, as
the field has evolved, the appreciation for research that merely applies theories de-veloped elsewhere has declined. Although the consumer environment places some
interesting constraints, and demonstrations that certain theories have implications
for consumers and marketers can be important, such research is increasingly re-garded as making limited (conceptual) contributions and not worthy of publication
in the leading journals. Indeed, to the extent that the consumer environment is just
another instance of the relevant constructs, there is no conceptual reason to expect
the theories not to apply.
We also examined whether there has been a trend with respect to research topics
that examine issues that are specific to and relevant primarily to consumer research and marketing as opposed to topics of general interest that might have been pub-lished in psychology and other basic discipline journals. For example, whereas
the topic of brand equity and extension is central to marketing (e.g. Aaker 1997,
Aaker & Keller 1990, Broniarczyk & Alba 1994, Fournier 1998, Keller 1993,
Gardner & Levy 1955, Park et al 1991), it has limited significance to other fields.
Excluding postmodern articles from the analysis, there has not been a significant
change on that dimension; during 1969–1973, 67% of the articles were classified
as consumer/marketing specific (1 or 2 on the 1– 4 scale), and since 1973 the two
topic categories (consumer-specific versus general) have accounted for approxi-mately the same share of consumer research articles.
In summary, our review of the state of consumer research and developments in
the field over the past 30 years points to several key trends. First, research topics
continue to be influenced by trends in other disciplines, especially psychology.
Second, related to the multidisciplinary impact, the consumer research field is
characterized by significant divisions between subareas, which not only tend to
study different topics, but also differ in terms of their research orientation and
methods. Finally, our analysis points to a growing emphasis on original topics and
theories compared with applications of existing theories adopted from other fields.
